The Invincible Adversary
by TheSpriteOfJayum
Summary: Four years have passed, & great expectations are awaiting Jenny & the monsters. In that time, an alien invasion arrives with the force to wreak revenge & destroy the team. No. 3 & last story of the Invisoline Trilogy. BOB/OC, Monger/OC
1. Attack at San Francisco

**Well, I guess I lied to y'all about my prophecy on this story. As it turns out, it's gonna be shorter than A Lifetime, so what's the point of making you wait about a year to read this? Alas, comes the last story of the Invisoline Trilogy. And a LOT's gonna take place in this story. No, there's not gonna be a horde of new monsters. There's just gonna be...aw, shoot, why am I even telling you this? Just sit back and enjoy the show.**

December 24, 2018...

Jenny's POV

Damp and shaking in the mild cold of winter, this was one crazy tough monster mission. I may have been invisible, but one could see warm blasts of air flowing from a hidden source. My mistake; those blasts were put to shame by the thick fog surrounding us.

We were in San Francisco, fighting on the Golden Gate Bridge. And after all the hard work of cleaning up President Hathaway's nuclear crud and repairing the bridge after the Team's debut mission, I'm afraid it all had to go down again. I swear all California's gonna hate us. Never mind, just as long as we don't destroy L.A. or Disney Land.

Christmas was about to be celebrated, but it didn't exactly turn out. It really reminded me of the allies of the good side (I forget who) in World War Two attacking German forces when Hitler went back home to celebrate his wifey's birthday. For us monsters, we refused to succumb to that sucker bet.

Instead of fighting a four-hundred-foot robot probe, we fought these really crazed aquatic aliens. They shot up these tentacle-like strands that would remind one of a grapple, and you would be most likely a gonner if you got caught. In all that fog we, Insecto and Susan especially, had to be on the lookout of standing too close to the edges of the bridge. Doesn't seem so destructive, eh? Well, if they miss, they have the tendencies to pull chunks off the bridge with them.

The weaker wussy monsters such as Doc, Liv, and unfortunately me would work on distracting the aliens. And then the stronger not-so-wussy guys like Link, BOB, Phyllis, and Elijah would take 'em on and knock 'em dead.

After about half an hour, we finally got our last one. Talk about a workout. After Susan strangled the life out of it, I swear I could hear a scream. The alien screams sounded a lot like a crowd of girls screaming at a concert. The fog, thank God, was almost gone now. BOB had gotten into the habit of performing a role call after the completion of each mission. So far, he had everyone but Phyllis.

"Phyllie?" BOB called in a sing-song tone. "Yoo hoo! Where are you? Are you here?" He lifted the back of Doc's labcoat up and took a good peek. Doc turned around and slapped him in the face, glaring daggers. He looked around at us and cocked an eyebrow like he does when he's thinking and gets stuck.

"Speaking of which, where is Phyllis?" He asked. Unexpectedly, we saw Elijah dive off the bridge and heard a distant splash. "Link, go down there!" He commanded. "That water's too strong to him!"

Elijah's POV

Holy Camelot, this water was freezing, and fast, too. I emerged out of the water and began dog paddling around. "Phyllis?" I called out. "Phyllis?" I dove into the liquid, the salt stinging my open eyes. I came out again, got my swig of air, and submerged.

I looked and saw an anthropormophic figure a few feet foward from me. Not seeing any tentacles or anything like that, my adrenaline kicked in as I hastily swam towards Phyllis. A sense of relief let out once I grasped her sinking body. I kicked my legs and was having a hard time fighting against the flow, especially with a dead-weight body at my side. I was beginning to feel light-headed when I finally rose above the surface.

A huge splash rippled against the frigid water, giving me a fighting chance to catch up on what I couldn't get. Quicker than what I expected, Susan emerged out of the water and snatched me up in her grip.

"You okay?" She asked me.

"Yeah." I replied breathlessly.

End of POV

Jenny's POV

About two minutes later, we heard Insecto purr in concern as Susan crawled up her furry torso. In her grip she held an equally soaked Elijah and Phyllis. Speedwalking from the giantess' palm and closer to the middle of the bridge, he carried the unconscious mutant and laid her down.

"Phyllis!" BOB screamed. "Speak to me!" He began shaking her and crying.

"Stop it! Don't!" Elijah lashed out, the fur on his neck raised. I took BOB's hand and comforted him, which made him calm down a bit.

Elijah tilted her head straight and pinched her nose tightly. He began breathing puffs of air into her open mouth repeatedly. After three puffs, she wasn't responding. "Oh, God in heaven," Liv muttered, holding herself as her eyes turned a light grey with fear. Link wrapped his arm around her.

Suffice it to say, the coyote boy kept on trying. Finally, Phyllis' eyes shot open. She lightly sat up and coughed out the salty water and bits of alien slime. Breathing deeply, she stared at her frightened savior, and both held each other in an embrace. The two and Susan stood up shakily and smiled at everybody in assurance.

Liv fluttered over to an alien corpse and landed next to it. She observed it carefully, an apprehensive expression forming on her face. "They've finally come back."

"What? Who?" Link asked.

"The aliens who came for us four years ago." Link looked confused. "Our captors. The ones we fought and destroyed in their scouter ship."

"So, you're saying the real mayhem has finally arrived?" I asked.

No one responded as Monger floated down in a parachute from an army helicopter and landed in front of us.

"A job well-done, monsters!" He exclaimed. "Too bad-we-" He began coughing. "Excuse me, just a bit of a cold bug going around. Too bad we have to see the bridge go down again. But it's worthit to save the world."


	2. Holiday Cheer and Love

"_The niiiiiiiiiiight Santa went craazaaay,_

_ "The niiight St. Nick went insaaaaaaanne,_

_ "Realiiiiiizzzed he'd been gettin' the raaaaw deal,_

_ "Somethin' fiiiinally must've snapped in his braaaaiiin._

_ "Who-oa, somethin' fiiinally must've snapped in his braaaiiin,_

_ "Tell ya, somethin' fiiinally must've snaaaaaaappped..._

_ "In his braaaaaiiiiiiiin"_

"That was so awesome!" I screamed at the top of my lungs as we clapped for Link and Phyllis. After months, make that years, of pleading at Monger's feet, he finally let them sing that song for Christmas' karaoke.

"Link, Electrill, well done on your version of that song." Monger complemented. "You have my permission to sing it, just as long as it isn't the extra gorey version." Link laughed as he took off his dirty Santa beard and hat. "And don't go metal next time, Electrill. Or that guitar's gone for one week." Phyllis looked at the departing general disgustedly.

"What in the-" She muttered. "I thought we were free."

"Don't you fret." Link chuckled. "At least he didn't confiscate it."

"Still." She grumbled.

"By the way, I like those Freddy Kreuger scars on your cheek. Keep 'em on for the rest of the night."

Yes, as Liv expressed in San Francisco, four years had passed alright. I barely graduated from high school two years ago and got my braces off at that time. I'm twenty now, and my current and only job is a monster. That's right; no flipping burgers at McDonald's like kids my age. I was given the option to do college work but chose not to.

Elijah's in high school now, fifteen, and is doing pretty good as our youngest monster. As his canine side works at his personality, he is extremely loyal and sweet, yes. Now that he's older he's not so innocent and cute anymore. With the coming of age, he's looking pretty cool. Phyllis, now twenty-five, has calmed down over the years, and her anger management issues aren't so bad. For a therapeutic hobby of tranquility, she learned to play guitar. She does good on an electric one, and can play it mean courtesy of her electric powers. Liv just went on 104, still young, and is still going steady with Monger. She may be short but she can be quite the mother figure out of us.

"Wowww," BOB gaped. "I had no idea Santa could be like that."

"It was only a story, BOB." Doc said, rolling his eyes. "And besides, Santa isn't-" I slapped his mouth shut.

"Don't say it, Bennett." I ordered, my teeth gritted. "Since he watched Polar Express and Miracle on 34th Street, he's believin' it."

"Mm-hmmf," He replied muffled.

"Hey, riddle me this. Is Santa a kindly old elf or some creeper from the CIA?" He courteously took my hand off his mouth.

"Neither would work, my dear, as he isn't real." He whispered before saying out loud. He chuckled. "It would be funny actually if he was a CIA spook." His smile dropped. "And don't call me Bennett."

_Eight years and still at it. _I thought as I beamed proudly.

"Hey, Billie!" BOB yelled. "I gotcha something! Open up!" He threw me a little plastic pink box, which I caught. I opened it up to find a little cheap sapphire necklace. For the sake of being polite, I fastened it on. "Cool, huh? Now we match!"

"BOB..." Susan looked at him. She cleared her throat a few times as a signal.

"Aw, poop, what was I gonna say?" The blob mumbled. He tapped a finger on his head. "That's it!...No, no, no, that's not right..." I stared at him.

"Well..." I sweetly began.

"Aha! You're twenty, right?"

"Yup. Remember last October with my birthday party?"

"YES!" He lifted up a fist in victory. "Now that you're that old, um...I'!"

Everybody cocked an eyebrow at him.

"What?" Elijah's voice echoed across the room.

"Okay, BOB, say it again, but slower. And shorter, 'kay?"

"Okay...here goes...ahem...Billie, will you..." His voice dropped to a whisper as he leaned toward my ear. "...marry me?"

I stood frozen. Did he just ask me to marry him. I'm twenty and I'm still a half-wit compared to my family. Elijah and I are just friends, so that wouldn't work. Link and Doc are like big brothers and somewhat dysfunctional around me, so no. And ever since I've been here, BOB and I have been like peas in a pod. "I will." I responded smiling.

"YAHOO!" He shouted, dancing around. "And that's your engagement necklace."

"BOB, it's supposed to be a ring." Elijah corrected.

"Lijah, we both like it as a necklace." I reprimanded.

"Alright." He surrendered. "Sorry."

I journeyed over to the table where Link and Elijah were sitting and enjoying coffee and hot chocolate.

"So, why are you agreeing to marry a brainless glop of jell-o?" Link asked, kinda dumbfounded at my supposed stupidity. I smiled smugly.

"Remember the Jessica Rabbit line?" I asked.

"What? 'I'm not bad; I'm just drawn that way?'" He guessed.

"Duh, no."

"Ooh! It's 'he makes me laugh.' Right?" Elijah asked.

"Yep."

Liv's POV

It was almost midnight, and I was probably the only one up. I sat on my bed, twiddling my fingers and just thinking. I was 104 years old and still feeling the same way I did nearly eighty years ago. Eighty years since I became a combination of fairy, elf, and hobbit. Eighty years since I met Walter Lynden and fell in love with him. Even with Warren, I still missed him. I kept a picture of him with me, but it was destroyed when I was abducted and imprisoned by aliens. The only picture I had was inside my memory

The door slid open beside me, which made me jump. Warren walked in with content smile on his lips. It was two years ago, I found out that he likes watching my eyes change colors. Oh well, I like it when he looks relaxed.

"Warren," I responded at his presence. "It's past lights out. What are you doing here?"

He chuckled. "I'll wait for you to calm down before I tell you something." He responded. Sometimes it sucks having mood ring eyes. I felt my eyes turn a greyish blue, and he cleared his throat and sat down next to me on the bed. I tried to think of something to say. "Um...how did the Hathaway vs. Price case turn out?"

"Suffice it to say, Olivia, the case did not go in our favor." He replied glumly.

"What?" I gawked. "Amanda worked so hard for that case." Even though President Hathaway had already stepped down from being President two years ago, Amanda went on to be a Senator. In fact, one of the few Senators that promotes monster rights.

"I know that well. Too well."

"So, I reckon we still can't get married. Even if we've been steady for four years." One of the privileges that we were restricted from having was marrying humans. It may have kept some of the creeper fans away, but in situations like this it could hurt.

"Nonetheless, I'm pretty sure we will be as steady as steady can get." He leaned to the right and reached into a pocket. He coughed a bit. "I saved it for your birthday, but I felt I shouldn't give it to you then." He handed me a velvet-covered box. "Merry Christmas, my love."

I opened it and inside lay an emerald ring. He delicately took it out and slid it onto my left ring finger. I glanced between the ring and Warren in a state of surprise yet admiration.

"During missions around the world at markets, the emeralds I'd see always reminded me of you as they resemble your eyes." He coughed before he continued. Weird thing was he didn't continue but lightly shivered.

"Are you alright?" I asked.

He nodded. "Just a bit cold." I placed my hand on his forehead.

"You are a little warm. You think you'll be okay?"

"I'll be fine. Good night."

"Sleep well, Warren. And don't push yourself, please." I kissed his rough cheek.

"I'll be fine, Olivia. Don't you worry about me." He kissed me back.

_"Don't you worry about me." _His words echoed in my mind. How could I not worry about him? Coughing and shivering...that wasn't like him to do that. How could I not worry?

**Lots of l'amour in this chap. But the adventure's just begun. Lots more (besides love) should be happening pretty soon. Just you wait...(evil grin and laugh) XD**


	3. Mount St Helens

If we thought San Francisco was cold, try a moutain in Washington. Yep, this morning, two weeks after Christmas, we monsters found ourselves climbing into the crater of Mount St. Helens.

"What happened here?" BOB asked, noting some of the ashes laying around.

"Volcano eruption." Doc answered intelligently as if he had a PhD in the field. "Happened nearly forty years ago. From what I've heard, it destroyed the surrounding forests. Now, c'mon."

While crawling into the crater, BOB and I absent-mindedly started whistling what we could remember of Stravinsky's Firebird Suite from Fantasia 2000. I don't know what everybody else was thinking but all I could imagine was the little green spring sprite working her magic in the forest.

"Shut it!" Phyllis hissed. "Do you wanna be E.T. fodder?" Elijah snuck up behind her and slapped his furry hand over her mouth.

"What about you?" He asked smartly.

"Coyotes." She muttered, rolling her eyes.

We heard a few rocks falling from a distance. It was so quiet in there that the recent disturbance was loud enough to wake the dead. We froze. After the noise happened again, a cannon shot a net in our direction. Susan ripped it apart like paper and threw it off to the side.

Again, another net was fired at us. It barely missed us, and Susan again destroyed it. "Heck, this'll be easy." Link commented cockily. We continued on our way, everything still quiet. Gradually, some bright light like the ones in a baseball stadium lit up the crater along with a large shadow. We turned around and recognized the shadow belonged to a net. A giant net that was made up of the nets we, make that Susan, tore apart.

"Oh my gosh!" Liv screamed.

"I hear you!" BOB added.

"Scatter! Now!" Link shouted. And that we did.

BOB, ever since we got engaged, has refused to leave my side. He swung around in a 360 and scooped me up and took off like a quarterback with a football. He took off like a mad, well, blob, and in every direction we encountered an alien guard, BOB screaming every time. Finally, at a loss of where to go, He stretched to the top of the probe ship.

"Okay..." He heaved a heavy sigh as he set me down. "I think we're safe." I smiled. However, my grin dropped as I dropped through a trap door. The next thing I knew I was stuck in a pair of giant pliers with a tight grip. But thank God not tight enough that I would be crushed, but holy crap was it tight.

Even through out missions and most of my life, I have never been more freaked out. All of a sudden, a head covering resembling the kind you'd see in a hair salon pressed tightly against my skull. I felt my hair rise as it brushed my face like I was submerging under water. Shortly but gradually, a weird sensational feeling I haven't felt in years began to flow through my body.

What made this even scarier was that through a glass wall to my right I saw Liv drop to the ground. The feeling began to overcome me, and everything turned black as an identical pair of pliers grabbed her.

I woke up against the crater ground under the ship as if I was at the sidewalk curb waiting for a garbage truck to come pick me up. I sat up quickly and hid my eyes in my hands, feeling dizzy. As soon as the spinning feeling began to fade, I exhaustively looked down at my pant legs.

"Okay...I'm good...they didn't strip me." I muttered. Then I suddenly realized what was going on. I really could see my pant legs. My clothes still turn invisible when I'm awake and appear when I'm unconscious, so this was creepy. I reached to pinch my arm...

...Oh...my...god...

I was seeing skin. The skin of both my hands. I looked down at my feet and saw the bare ankles between my socks and pant-leg hems. I never noticed until now that my now long black hair draped over the right side of my face.

Oh...no...

I was visible again.

Instantly recognizing my need for help, I shakily stood and began to run around the crater to find the others for help. I was too focused on finding at least one of my friends that I ended up being in a head-on collision between myself and another being. The groans of my voice and a male voice sounded in unison.

I looked up to see who and what the being was. In front of me standing up was a man with dark brown hair, a prominent chin, and a classy pencil mustache.

"WHO THE HECK ARE YOU?" I screamed.

"I dare say, my dear girl!" He exclaimed back. "I'm wondering the same about you." He bent down and grabbed my arm to lift me up.

"Thanks a lot, whoever you are." I muttered, looking at the hand that grasped mine. I looked down at his plaid pants and traveled up to the lab coat and black turtle neck he was wearing. My eyes shot open wide. I looked up at his profile, and my blood ran cold at the sight of two antennae standing from his head.

"...Doc?..." I squeaked.

**Sorry I haven't updated lately. Due to a combo of laziness, school, finishing up my birthday, and getting ready for Christmas, it's been hectic with a capital "heck." And chap 9 for Lifetime should be up soon. In case I don't see you again before Christmas, I say...MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY HOLIDAYS, SEASON'S GREETINGS, HAPPY HANNUKAH, KWANZAA, AND HOWDY HOWDY!-Jane **

**PS: I'm a little stuck with Area 51 Triad. If you have any ideas, let me know, PLEASE!**


	4. Dropping Hopes

I sat on a stool in front of a vanity, staring at myself and played with a strand of my now long black hair. It had been three hours since we arrived back from our victory yet defeat, and I was still having a hard time processing the fact that I was visible again.

"Hey, beautiful!" Link yelled at me from his pool. "You can quit admiring yourself. It's been, what, an hour and a half already."

"Hey, sea monkey!" I snapped. "_You _try not seeing yourself in eight years!"

In that hour and a half, I realized how much I had changed. That family reunion eight years ago in Vancouver, B.C., I was just a girl. Now, in 2018, I was a full-blown woman. Not only had I grown out but also grew half a foot in height. I chuckled, remembering that long-term growth spurt when I was fifteen and how I could chow down a foot-long Subway sandwich or a Mickey-D's Big Mac combo and still be hungry.

Liv walked up behind me. "Jenny, dear?" She asked me. I stared at her in the mirror.

"Yeah?" I shrugged. After staring at her sad smiling face for a few seconds, I finally realized something.

Something was missing. Where were her wings? And where were the feet I usually see dangling from her? I turned around. "...No...bleeping...way..." I steadied myself as I almost fell from my chair. Liv was no longer a four-foot height cutie pie but was now possessed a height of five foot six, about my height. I couldn't help but notice at a normal height, she was no longer cute but beautiful. Her wings were but a two-inch stump with tears and blood, looking as if her wings were torn off and made her bleed.

"Liv?" I whimpered. I looked again, and she was wearing a red sleeveless casual dress.

"I know what you're thinking." She sadly smiled. "Had I kept my original suit on, I would've looked like a pin-up model." She chuckled, trying to lighten up the situation.

"Not a bad idea." Link muttered. Liv rolled her now golden brown eyes that stayed that color as she returned to me. "Do you want me to braid your hair?"

"Sure." I mumbled. As she plaited my locks, I noticed the only thing monster-y that was left of her was her elf ears.

Susan brushed her white shoulder-length hair. Her right foot swung back and forth, hitting the bar on her metal chair with a rhythmic beat. She was now a couple of inches taller than me and Liv and was in a blue short-sleeved shirt and a pair of jeans that really brought out the blue in her eyes.

"I don't get it!" Phyllis raged, slamming her fist on the metal table in frustration.

"Get what?" BOB asked. He suppressed a laugh from the sight of the blond-haired monster shaking her hand in pain.

"How Liv, Susan, Jen, and Doc are humans, and-"

"Me, you, BOB, Link, and Insecto are still monsters?" Elijah finished.

"Yeah!" Phyllis confirmed.

An alarm went off at Liv's bedroom door. The once fairy-hobbit-elf-human hybrid ran off to her room, leaving my braid almost finished.

"I'll be right back, Jenny!" She called as she shut the door. Everything was silent for a few seconds until BOB started whistling, imitating the track of crickets.

"Okay, I think this is it." Elijah said outloud. "Jenny, you used to be human, right?"

"Ya heard right." I responded. "So were Susan and Doc."

"That's it!" The coyote boy snapped his fingers. "I can't become a human, and neither can Phyl, Link, or BOB. We were born as monsters."

_"I'm beautiful in my way," _BOB started crooning.

_"'Cause God makes nooo mistakes,_

_ "I'm on the right track, babay,_

_ "I was bo-orn this way!"_

"Can it, ya dip!" Phyllis snapped, slapping BOB.

"Sorry," He whimpered as he rubbed his face. "I just remembered it's supposed to be karaoke night tonight." Insecto roared at him.

"She's right." Link said. "We'll have to save it for later, okay, buddy?"

"'Kay." The blob sighed, slid to my side, and put an arm around me.

Liv and Doc walked through the door, both with solemn expressions.

"What's with the long face?" I asked sympathetically. I face-palmed; maybe that wasn't the most sympathetic quote. Just take away the "sym" and it'd be perfect.

"Did someone die?" BOB asked.

Doc stared at the ceiling and sighed as his antennae slid in his face. "Someone, if not, two, may die..."

"Who?" Phyllis asked considerately.

"I made some calculations based off of blood tests of us all."

"What does _that _have to do with death?" Link asked.

"As it turns out, I was supposed to die six years ago, 2012, had I still been human. Yes, at the age of eighty. Liv should've died twelve years ago in 2006 when she was ninety-two. I'm eighty-six, and she's a hundred and four.

"Based off those calculations, I'm supposed to die in about six months." He turned to Liv. "Liv, my dear, you've only a little more than one month to live. If it wasn't for the little bit of our monster abilities we had left, we would've dropped dead after what happened."

"Oh, god, no," Susan gasped. "What's going to become of me and Jenny?"

Liv spoke up, "Monger says the government was going to give us one week-"

"ONE WEEK?" I shrieked.

"But with some persuasion from Amanda Hathaway, we're now given about a month left to become monsters again or return home."

"Well, Liv and I might be dead," Doc gulped at the thought of his own death. "But hopefully-"

"We'll still be together, right?" BOB chimed excitedly. "We can always go visit Susan and Jenny, right?"

My heart dropped, remembering the fact monsters and humans couldn't marry each other.

"And-and we'll always be together. Manda might not be much of a help, but with Monger around we'll be okay, right?"

Nobody responded. Before any could say, "I hope," Liv sighed.

"I don't know..." She muttered, a tear trickled down her cheek.

"What's wrong?" Elijah asked.

"Monger's been diagnosed with pneumonia."

**Hap-ppeeeeeeeeeey New Year, all y'all's. I'm finishing up Christmas break and have been taking some time with my other fandoms (artwork included). Thanks much for bearing with me. -Jane**


	5. Of Monsters and Moms

**Okay, here comes a big one. Ready? GO!**

Elijah's POV

_A little more than one month..._that statement repeated in my head. I sank into my chair and could only hold my head, careful that my long claw-like fingernails didn't scrape my scalp.

Some typical teenagers my age could really care less about their moms. Even when those moms would do just about anything for them, even die for them. I never grew up having my real mom, Janelle (Liv told me her name a couple years ago), as she died when I was only a few days old. I would never know what a dad was because I didn't grow up with one either. Liv fulfilled the promise to raise me if anything happened to Mom and raised me as her own child. I may not be related to Liv by blood, but she was...

My heart sank as I realized it all...

She was my mom...

I didn't have much of a friendship with anyone as I was in a severely harsh prison. A friendship would only last a few weeks, if not a couple of months, as monsters and mutants died in those conditions. To the bitter end of our captivity, she and I were the few left.

I wasn't known for crying a lot, but a few tears dropped in my lap. If I were only a bit more coyote, I would've started howling in a lament. I looked up at Liv and Doc as they shared equally hopeless faces and began to head for their rooms. How I wanted to rush up to her and lock her in my arms.

_For crying out loud, Li, _I scolded myself. _You're fifteen; not five. _I shut my eyes and only heard a few footsteps approaching in my direction, a duet of klunks on the metal floor following.

"Hey," I heard a female voice say. I looked up drearily. Phyllis? She smiled comfortingly and lifted up my chin, attempting to wipe the tear trails on my furry cheeks.

"It's no use, Phyl," I airlessly chuckled, a forced smile on my face. "You're only spreading it some more."

"Well, I can't have you going around smelling like a wet golden retriever." She smiled but frowned as she noticed me frowning too. She wrapped her arms around me. "I'm sorry, Li. At least we had a warning."

"What are you even talking about?" I crescendoed from a mutter to a snap as I pushed her off of me. "She was the only mom I had ever known!"

Staring at Phyllis breathing hard on the ground with wide eyes. I realized what I had done right in front of everybody. I stared at my monster-like hands in what seemed to be a fear of myself. I was afraid alright. Not of myself but afraid of Liv's fate. "I'm sorry." I whimpered while sitting back down.

"Elijah, I'm sorry." Phyllis said cooly, cautiously approaching me like a zookeeper in the lions' cage.

"No, Phyl, _I'm _sorry." I said. Everything was silent as the rest of the monsters went to their rooms for the night. After five minutes, I looked at her. "And what did you mean by a warning?"

"I know this whole mess is disheartening but I'm happy that we, you especially, at least had some warning about possibly...you know..."

"Why just me?" She turned her head toward the door of her room and sighed. "What about your mom, Phyl?"

Her eyes shot open as she turned back to me. She had never said anything about her past, and if we bothered to ask all heck would broke loose.

"Phyl, it's okay; I swear I won't tell anyone." She took a deep breath and hesitantly began.

"Elijah...I don't know..." I lightly stared at her. "My mom was the only one who knew I was a mutant and made sure that this stayed a secret." She pulled up one of her blue strands of hair. "You see this?"

"Yeah?"

"How many of these do I have?"

"Five."

"Mm-hm. Each strand indicates a set of five years I've lived, five making twenty-five years. My mom thought I was just a normal baby until one day, when I was about two, she saw me stick my finger in a plug-in." She chuckled. "And worst of all, with a butter knife. I was electrocuted, and Mom freaked out. She even freaked out more when she found out I wasn't harmed by the shock. At five, she noticed one of my strands of hair turned blue and eventually had to dye it blonde, so my dad wouldn't suspect a thing."

"Why just your mom?"

"...Mom was a mutant too, and Dad was a human, just like your parents. Out of all this, she was one of the best people I knew.

"When I was ten, life seemed at its best. Mom was expecting a baby, a mutant of course, and she and I would always wonder how we were going to hide the, well, mutant-ness, from Dad. Enough of that. We were planning a trip to Florida for vacation once Mom had her baby and we were pretty close to having enough money to go. The only thing we could do was wait.

"It was only a month until Mom's due date, and my parents told me we'd go out to an early dinner and discuss our trip and the arrival of the baby once I got back from school. I remember jumping off the bus and getting so excited I forgot to wave good-bye to my friends. I opened the door and threw my backpack onto the coat rack.

_"Mom! Dad! I'm home! Are we ready to go?" _

_ There was no response. "Hello? I'm home!_

_ "Mom?_

_ "Dad? _

_ "Anybody? Hello?"_

_ Everything was becoming scary now. If the minivan and Dad's work car were in the driveway, where would they be?_

_ "Mom? Is that you?" One could smell fudge brownies in the oven but there was no Mom. They smelled wonderful and looked ready, but in a situation like this, who would even bother to turn the oven off?_

_ On days when Dad got home from work early, he would be in the garage trying to repair anything that was broken in the house. "Dad, are you in here?" No one could hear the distant klink-clank-klink on a piece of metal. _

_ The two bathrooms were empty, and the familiar sounds of showers raining and toilets flushing were dead. The baby's room was equally vacant, which brought up a possible reason for Mom and Dad being gone. What if Mom was having her baby early? _

_ There was no note held on the fridge to say, "We'll be back soon. Love you." The smell of brownies began to evolve into a stench of burning food. _

_ The bedroom was empty except for the bed, dresser, play table, and toys. The one place that was missed came into thought: Mom and Dad's room._

_ The tormented young screams of "MOM! DAD!" sounded across the house. Despite the fact of searching through the bed covers, there was no Mom and Dad. _

_ The world turned grey as the sky did also. If the world should end, it should be now. Tears stained the mattress cover. Soon, rain drops dropped, and soaked the bed even more. Curiousity was fulfilled at the sight above of a giant whole in the roof. Sorrow, however, reached its peak at the realization of Mom and Dad being gone. Forever._

I stared at Phyllis as she again took a deep breath and had her eyes shut. She lowered her head. I handed her the tissue box with the Area 52 logo on it as I thought she was gonna cry.

"No thanks, bud." She whispered.

"What happened after that?" I asked. "If you don't feel like it, you don't have to say anything."

"That's fine. Once word got out to my family that my parents were gone, my grandma, my mom's mom, took me in and saw me finish up elementary and middle school. I was almost finished up with my freshman year in highschool, and then I got abducted and ended up with you and Liv."

I could only stare some more. It's a wonder the mutant wasn't crying her eyes out.

"Phyl, I'm sorry I lashed out at you like that."

"It's okay. As it is, you're one of the bravest people I know."

"Really?"

"'Ya kiddin'? You've been threw hell and back again all your life and you've managed to keep your coyote head up high."

"I've only been in captivity six years and I'm afraid I'm still a crazed walking lightning bolt."

"Aw, heck with it; you've gotten better."

"I don't know about but," She yawned right as the curfew alarm went off. "Combined with your coyote abilities of surival and Liv raising you, that's why you amaze me. You're lucky to have Liv as your mom." She rolled her eyes at the constant beeping. "Better get to bed or we're gonna get chewed one. Heck, what am I even talking about? With all this crud we're going through, we're already chewed!"

"G'nite, Phyl." I couldn't help but chuckle, even through my pain. "Glad I know you."

** Wow. This was one of the very few times I get choked up about my work. TIA's gonna be more about Elijah and Phyllis. And no, they're NOT going to be a couple. Not to make them Mary-sues or Gary-stus, I am, in fact, going to tell you more about the hardships of their lives in the next chapter or two. You might not see any updates for Lifetime or TIA this coming week as I've been working like crazy as it is the end of a school term. But don't you fret, I'll be up and at it pretty soon. Thanks for reading and reviewing.-Jane **


	6. As the World Falls Down

**Hope this isn't a drabble chapter. But it is a songfic chapter. "As the World Falls Down" by David Bowie from the movie Labyrinth.**

Liv's POV

I speed-walked at a decent pace down the hallway. I was inside a veteran's hospital in Nevada near Las Vegas and being as I'm a human I can make it any where without paparazzi chasing after me. For once in my life, it felt wonderful to not be flooded by reporters.

_241. 241. _I whispered the room name, making sure I had it down. 235...237...239...aha! 241. I was happy yet sad about finding it as I remembered that pneumonia is a common killer of the elderly.

I entered the hospital suite. It was about twice as grand as the average patient's room yet it didn't matter. I looked down at Warren's sleeping face as he lightly snored. He was hooked up to an oxygen tank and a pulse meter, the constant beep interrupting the silence. I attempted to sit down on the railing along side the bed but remembered that I wasn't that short anymore and nearly fell off.

Momentarily, he woke up. "Olivia?" I shushed him gently, trying hard not to cry.

"It's alright, Warren." I reached to stroke his rough face. Even though my eyes didn't work like mood rings anymore, he could tell I trying so hard not to bawl.

_As such a sad love_

_ Deep in your eyes _

_ A kind of pale jewel_

"Please, love, don't cry." He whispered.

"Alright." I whimpered. "I'll try." His hand, pierced with an IV and a couple of smaller needles, grasped mine and held it to his cheek. I swallowed a great deal of that lump in my throat and made the dare to talk. "How's it going?"

"Well, Liv, from what it's looking like, I'm not going to hang on much longer." I cursed inside as that lump resurrected. "And your side of the world?"

"It's been two weeks since I became human again. According to Dr. Cockroach's averages, I age a little over a year a day, so I'm basically in my early forties now." _Darn it, Liv! _I scolded myself. _Don't cry. Not now._ "Is Amanda going to make sure of everything once..."

"Once I'm gone?" He finished. He chuckled a bit before coughing. "I'm pretty sure Miss Hathaway's gonna take charge of y'all." He noticed my sad stare.

_Opened and closed within your eyes_

_ I'll place the sky within your eyes_

"Olivia, I'm old. I've lived my years. After living a bright youth and fighting in the midst of World War Two and running the facility to look after you monsters during the past nearly one hundred years, there's no reason why I should go on. Nearly all my life, nothing could take down this body of stone. And now the time has come when something eventually takes me down.

"One more thing, have you figured out...

"...your will...?"

My vision was blurry as a puddle must've made its way on the side of his bed. He sat up some more and wrapped a bare arm around my shoulder, his free hand stroking my hair. "There, there, Olivia."

I looked up at him and exploded. "Warren, I can't let you die. I can't!"

_There's such a fooled heart_

_ Beating so fast _

_ In search of new dreams_

"And neither can I." He replied gruffly yet gently.

"My will is resolved, Warren." I blubbered, trying to speak. "When I'm gone-" He shushed me as if telling me, "don't say that." I continued. "Phyllis will take care of Elijah."

"That's the best idea for Coyosapien's future." He nodded his head. "If nothing goes our way, it's going to be just Link, BOB, Butterflyosaurus, and Coyosapien, leaving Electrill as the only female. That's why that's our best bet. Along with Miss Hathaway, Link will lead what monsters we have left."

He looked at the cheap clock hanging on the wall a meter the biohazard box. "Looks like you gotta get back soon, Olivia. And I plead that you don't kiss me on the lips."

_A love that will last within your heart_

_ I'll place the moon within your heart_

_ As the pain sweeps through_

_ Makes no sense more you,_

Sadly smiling, I kissed my fingertips and placed them on his lips. "Sleep tight, darling." And once again I kissed him. On the forehead, that is. I grabbed my clutch purse and began my departure but turned around. He smiled at me and waved his hand for me to go.

While halfway through the hallway to the elevator, something dawned on me and hit me like a freight train.

_Every thrill has gone,_

_ Wasn't too much fun at all_

We were both human. We could...

Marry.

Not being able to bear it any longer, I ran the rest of the way to the elevator.

_But I'll be there for you_

_ As the world falls down..._

Jenny's POV

I twittled my fingers in boredom on the metal table. Ever since that one night Elijah let loose, he seemed pretty distant and clinged to Phyllis. Liv spent a good hour every other day visiting Monger and spent what time she could with us, making her last days happy ones. For most of the day during the meals on the other side of the table, Link and Doc conversed over what would happen in the future.

Despite the despression going on, it was funny to watch Doc doing the things he did now. He hated the taste of garbage with a passion now, which we thought would never happen unless pigs flew in a frozen hell.

He got up from his seat and saluted Link. Instead of going back to his lab to work on some of the things he would have to accomplish before he died, he walked up towards me. One could tell plain straight that he was still having a hard time accepting the fact he could see me.

"Jennifer, my dear, inspite of all what's going on, I hope you're not terribly depressed." He told me.

"Heck, yeah, I'm depressed. But not terribly." I shrugged; he could tell I was lying. "Darn it. Then again, I'm gonna really miss being with you guys." He sadly smiled. "Hey, Bennett?"

"Yes, Jennifer?"

"Can I say one thing?" I beamed as this was the first time he didn't react to me calling him Bennett.

"Of course."

"Despite the grey hairs and antennae, you look hot." He chuckled before putting a hand behind his back and getting ready to talk with Susan.

Like I said before, I was really going to miss being a monster. Ever since BOB found out about that, he's been very depressed. At least once a day, he starts whimpering and grabs a hold of me so he can't let me go. And half the time I get absorbed but that I don't mind. I looked over at him. He was painting a three-year-old's portrait of me and him holding hands. Once he finished and let the paint dry, he drew a crooked heart with school glue around the two figures and gushed gold glitter on it. He shook it until the loose glitter fell to the floor like gold snow, leaving a golden heart surrounding his painting.

_I'll paint you mornings of gold,_

_ I'll spin you Valentine evenings,_

_ Though we're strangers to love, _

He placed his artwork in front of me. Though he painted my left pinky finger twice as large as my right thumb and his eye and mouth so huge that there was barely any blue left of him, I smiled at the simple yet passionate painting. A soft prelude to a song turned up at a somewhat high volume made us jump slightly. Seeing nothing, we settled back down and returned to whatever we were doing. A hand extended towards me. "Hey, may I have this dance?"

I looked up. There with an attempted dashing look on his face stood BOB. It dawned on me what song was playing when I looked the top of his head, which was styled like David Bowie's in the movie _Labyrinth_. I smiled and glanced to my left and right.

"What? Do you need that big white poofy dress?" He asked worringly.

"Nope," I smiled and took his hand. Elegantly, he took me to the middle of the room and bowed. Though it was off-beat to the song playing, we did a waltz of sorts. He tried keeping that stern yet sexy face Dave keeps a good part of the movie. Unfortunately, on an innocent lethargic blob it looks a little funny.

_We're choosing a path between the stars,_

_ I'll lay my love_

_ Between the stars_

I tried not to laugh but instead grinned and chuckled a bit. "You wanna know something?" I asked him.

"...What?" He replied as a Jareth-wannabe.

"I like you just as BOB."

"Just me? Not as Jareth?"

"Yep. I'm never bored with you."

"Oh. I thought girls liked hot guys. Ya know, like Jareth."

"Yeah, but hot guys can get boring after a while."

"Cool, I didn't know that; I'll have to keep that in touch."

As we talked during our dance, BOB absent-mindedly let the wild hairdo dissolve back into his bald head as he kissed the top of my head.

_As the pain sweeps through_

_ Makes no sense for you,_

He chuckled as he led me to sit down. He wrapped a gelatinous arm around me and stared at the plain grey metal ceiling as if it mapped out a maze of stars. I smiled sadly and looked down at my right hand. His happiness would only last a short while, and I wondered what he would do with me not being there. Maybe if Monger allowed it, the monsters could come visit me in Canada.

_Every thrill has gone,_

_ Wasn't too much fun at all_

All our adventures together in monster missions and life in the monster world seemed to come alive in my mind like a 3-D movie, without needing those darn glasses. When we first met eight years ago and how he made me belly laugh. Almost all our missions, some in which we almost died. The bittersweet day of wishing his jell-O, Bella Marie, farewell as "she" melted and/or rotted (I forget). Picking on the other monsters. Playing three-second games of Jenga (his favorite; he liked the blocks falling). Birthday and holiday parties. The whole kit and kaboodle.

_But I'll be there for you_

_ As the world falls down_

We weren't lovers whatsoever, even though BOB thought we were, but we were best friends. And I was really gonna miss him. My best friend.

_Falling_

_Falling in love_

**Gonna put this story on a bit of a hold for a while so I work on Lifetime cuz I'm so freaking uninspired (okay, maybe a little inspired) with that story. But I'll update soon.**


	7. Too Late

_"Jeff? Jeffrey, are you there?"_

_ No._

_"It's me. Dianne." _

_Oh, god, no. _

_ "Dianne, don't come in!" _

_ "Jeff, what's wrong?"_

_ "Dianne, I beg of you! Don't, please. It's for your own good."_

_ "What on earth are you talking about?"_

_"You don't want to see. You'll never want to."_

_ The click-clicks of low-heeled peep-toe shoes on the hardwood floor grow louder. _

_"Jeffrey, just tell me what's wrong? I promise I won't tell anyone."_

_ "Wait, Di-"_

_The door swings open. A slender hand grasps another hand and pulls its owner out of the darkness of the basement into the light. A sharp gasp fills silence as her shoes gradually step back. His snappy black dress shoes step forward in a reluctant confrontation._

_ "Dianne, I-"_

_ A shrill scream crescendos as her shoes dashes toward the front door. In an attempt to keep other people from finding out, his arm grabs hers, making her stop while he takes the other arm. _

_ "Dianne! Dianne! Listen to me! Please!_

_ "Dianne!..._

_ "Dianne!..."_

Dr. C's POV

I woke up speaking the same name that was fading at the end of the dream. What haunted me most of all was that not only was I speaking it but screaming it. Thankfully, I was alone in my dimly lit room so I didn't wake up everyone else.

"Okay, Jeff, old boy. Easy does it." I coached myself before I fell back asleep.

In case you were wondering, dear reader, the combination of the name called in my dream (not Dianne, of course) and a dear yet despised nickname from Jennifer concludes to who I am. Or who I used to be. Fifty-six years ago, I was Jeffrey W. Bennett, Ph.D.: a thirty-year-old scientist as well as dancer from Hatfield, England, the Ph.D. being in dance.

_"Dianne! Dianne! Listen to me! Please!" _

_"Let go of me! I don't know what you are or what you want with me, LET! ME! GO!"_

_ More screams fills the tiny apartment. It's finally time to tell the truth before more disaster could occur._

_ "Dianne, I can't let you go! It's me-"_

_ "Who's you?"_

_ "It's me. Jeffrey. Jeffrey Bennett." _

_ His grasped hands lift off her shoulders and release them. _

_The heeled shoes take few steps back in fear. Her green eyes glances between the floor and the legs close by__.__ After a crawled retreat to the old faded couch in the parlor, his green-gold eyes stare at its fellow body__.__ In bewilderment. In disgust. In shame. Most of all, in failure._

It was breakfast the following morning. I could only nibble at the buttered toast at my plate. I had tried out a Cheez-It box and remembered once my cockroach passion for garbage no longer existed. Whenever I wasn't eating, I would boringly fiddle with a few strands of my graying brunette hair and the base of my antennae as I held my head, being as there wasn't much I wanted to experiment with. I was still getting used to the fact that I didn't have to reach a far distance to hold my once gargantuan head.

"You okay, Doc?" Susan asked, her bright blue eyes looking into my dreary eyes.

"Mm-hm." I mumbled. "I'm just tired; that's all."

"You need coffee?" B.O.B. asked.

"No, thank you, B.O.B."

A copy of the local newspaper for Hatfield dropped at my science desk. Anxiously, I dropped to the floor only to remember that, well, I couldn't crawl as quickly as I used to. I quickly walked to the desk and opened the newspaper. Like my science experiments, I could sit in that plush office chair and focus for hours and hours on end.

Everyone had left the breakfast table and turned to their hobbies. Susan selected a few Jane Austen novels and sat down at the table to read. Jennifer and B.O.B. drew pictures for each other and would add them B.O.B.'s menagerie of artwork on a 100-foot tall cork board. Liv was gone every other day to visit Monger, and her rapid aging as well as melancholy condition worried us all. Link lifted weights while watching Phyllis strum various chords on her electric guitar. Elijah, the poor boy, stared endlessly at the grey ceilings as if in a trance.

I had finally reached the obituaries as I had skipped the comics, not being in the mood to read them. I drowsily browsed through the faces of people, young and old, until I reached the third to the last one. My blood running cold served as a catalyst to a mad dash to my room. Hyperventilating and reaching my bed, I read that one over and over again.

_Dianne Maria Wood Langley (May 8, 1933-December 29, 2018). Dianne was born in Watford, Hertfordshire, England to J. Russell and Emily Wood. Dianne graduated from Hatch End High School in June 1951 and graduated from University of Northampton with a Bachelor of Arts in dance in 1955. She was engaged to Jeffrey William Bennett, Ph.D. until his death in an accident on September 14, 1962. She married Robert Gerard Langley on March 18, 1967. She taught dances at various studios throughout England until her retirement in 1998. She died of influenza on December 29, 2018 in London at the age of 85. A memorial service was held January 3, 2018. She is survived by her husband, three children, five grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren._

The dream, no, make that a flashback, from the night before came to mind. I could only think of the last time I saw her.

_"Let him go! Let him go! I love him! Please!" Her arm stretches toward him and tears spill down._

_"Dianne! Please! Don't try to stop them!" _

_ "I won't leave you! They can't take you! Stop it! Stop!"_

_ "Shut it, ya hoe!"_

_ A short shrill scream surpasses the bustling of the soldiers and equipment. The sight of her on the side of the road unconscious releases a river of adrenaline._

_ "Dianne!" repeatedly penetrates throughout the __alley outside his apartment. A stab releases another scream. His. The passionate struggles to reach her body prove to fail soon as the world turns black__._

_ "__Dianne!...Dianne...Dian__...__Di...__"_

Monger assured me of two things when I arrived at the facility: One—that Dianne was alright and had only suffered a concussion, and two—that the soldier who knocked her from behind was discharged and never to return to the Army. After my capture, my family and close friends were told that an experiment I was working on backfired, and that the force and the reaction was so strong it killed me.

From my research throughout my nearly ten years of freedom, my mum and dad have been dead for at least twenty-five years now. My younger sister died in a car accident with her husband the summer before my release. The knowing that I was only less a year away from being with her tore apart my heart when I found out about her.

Most of the people I knew from my past were gone, the rest still alive. However, hearing that I wasn't dead but living as a human-insect world savior would most likely give them heart attacks and leave them as good as dead. Thankfully, those few were ones I only made brief acquaintances with, such as students and other scientists from the university I researched at or distant family friends.

Dianne was told I was dead and to keep what she knew of the real story a secret. Suffice it to say, I'm glad she moved on with life, married and had children of her own and that she didn't let my "death" shut life down. Nonetheless, whether she had let go of me or not, she was one of the people I wanted to find and reunite with. After several of the team's appearances in magazines and newspapers and TV recordings, I know well that she knew I was alive. I could only hope she felt euphoria and sentiment each time she saw me.

I had only known her as Dianne Wood, not Dianne Langley. The game that law plays with women's names and marriage complicated things on my part for research. Sadly, research, sleepless, passionate, thorough, countless hours of it, proved to be too late. It may have been less than a month since her death, but it felt like years too late. Ten years too late.

End of POV

~The next day...~

Elijah's POV

I got up off the floor. I figured if I stay like this I'd eventually go mad and earn the mind of an insane asylum inmate. My tail swished around in relief seemingly from a lack of circulation for the past few hours.

"Darn these calluses." I heard Phyllis mumble as she put her guitar back in its case. She took off her fingerless gloves and set them aside. Realizing I was watching her, she smiled and softly said, "Hi."

"Hi." I said back. She began scratching behind my coyote ear. My canine instincts kicked in, and I relaxed and my eyes closed.

"That's a good boy; he's such a good boy," She cooed sarcastically.

"Yeah, yeah." I replied, smiling and stepping back from the sensation. A whistle from Susan (it's still hard to accept she's at my height nowadays) interrupted our light fun. She motioned for me, Phyl, and Link to come to the table. Jenny & B.O.B. were already there finishing a couple last drawings before returning to harsh reality. One could tell Link had left with the loud _CLANG! _of a heavy weight.

"What's up, Susie?" Jenny asked.

"It's about Doc," Susan replied.

"What about him?" Link dully asked, hands resting on his sides.

"He...he just hasn't been himself lately." The former giantess explained. "I haven't seen him that way since—"

"Since the day that $1 billion nuclear reactor he bought got destroyed?" B.O.B. asked.

"Yes, since that day that..." Susan said before stopping. "Yes, what he said."

"And I guess you want one of us to go waltz in there and play doctor and make the boo-boos go away." Phyllis said sarcastically. Everyone stayed silent and stared at her. "If you're thinking me, no way."

"C'mon, Phyl;" I said, lightly slugging her left arm.

B.O.B. peered over at the clock on the wall before estimating, "It's been three years, four months, one week, six days, sixteen hours, ten minutes, four seconds, fifty-nine milli—"

"Yeah, yeah." Phyllis snapped. "Last time I played psychologist with him, we got in a fight. You remember, right? I even ripped off part of an antenna."

"A third off, to be exact." Link commented.

"Enough estimates, wise guy," She sneered. "I'm not going in there. I don't care what little stupid bribes, Bambi eyes, Shirley Temple dimples, any of that crap you drop in my lap, I'm not doing it!"

"Come to think about it, Phyl," I spoke up. "It'll all be over soon. Y'know, kind of like those annual electricity reflexes tests you have to take."

"Dang! Alright; you guys got me." She threw up her arms in the air and marched off. "But that's the last time!"

"Oh, sure," Link snickered before returning to his pool.


	8. Phyl's Visit at the Dr's Office

**Hey, gang! Here we go with another chap! And for the record, the name "Jeffrey Bennett" was in no way homage to Jeff Bennett (Kowalski's voice in the TV show); I didn't even know about until it was said. Good news is things have slowed down, not all the way but close. **

Phyllis' POV

"I must be out of my mind." I grumbled. "If this doesn't go well, I swear I'll never forgive those basters."

As I stood outside Doc's bedroom door, I didn't want to look back at the gang. I felt their eyes bore into the back of my head. It was too much like the dwarfs and Dopey in the Disney cartoon: "We're right behind yah." I rolled my eyes and hesitantly knocked on the door.

The absence of an opening door shocked me as Doc was up and at 'em to open his door.

_Knock! Knock! Knock!_

"Cockroach? It's Phyl."

"What do you need?" A cracked voice droned back.

"Can I come in?"

I didn't hear a response; only the squeaking of his swivel chair and the dragged steps to the door. The metal slab ascended and there stood the man himself. Only dreary-eyed with the antennae drooping in front of his face.

"Evenin'" I greeted.

"Hello, Phyllis," He mumbled and sadly smiled.

"'You okay?"

"I'm fine." I tried to hide a smile and a laughing snort, but a smirk made its way out.

"No offense, Cocky, you're still a bad liar." He sadly smiled. "Sorry…shouldn't have said that."

"It's alright, my dear. You can come in." He led me in into the room and shut the door. He sat down on his bed while I sat down on his desk chair.

"So,…" I began to speak while I coached myself. _Okay, Phyllie, keep cool. _"Anything wrong?"

"No, nothing at all; it's just that…" He absent-mindedly said before stopping himself. "Oh, snap."

"Just what?"

"Nothing, Phyllis. Never mind."

"C'mon, Doc. You see those four walls?"

"I said 'never mind!'" He lashed out.

I stood in shock. Being as how respectful he is to ladies, this would take _any_one by surprise. I clenched my fists and thought, _So that's how you wanna play it, pretty boy?_ Somehow, by some miracle, I stopped myself.

"Doc, nothing's gonna go outside them, I swear." I surprised myself. I was actually doing pretty good. "Ya got it?"

"Phyllis, years ago…years and years ago, when I was human, I met a girl in college in my dance classes. Her name was Dianne. We became friends at the time we both finished our associate's degrees and eventually dated. The day I wanted to ask for her hand in marriage was…unfortunately…the day of my accident.

"She was frightened at first, of course. Yet, since we couldn't exactly be bound together in holy matrimony, she made the decision to belong to no one else as long as we both lived. It all happened only moments before my capture." He turned his head towards me.

"She died. Last December." Tears spilt down his cheeks. "I'm so sorry, Phyllis."

"For what?"

"For dropping all this on you."

"Doc, I can handle just about anything."

"Thank you, my dear. With Dianne, we were determined to be together for life. When she died—"

I couldn't take it anymore. Although my sympathies for the guy were an A plus, my patience was failing with an F minus. So I interrupted with, "…a part of you died as well, I bet. Even though you weren't exactly dead. You wanted to die. More than anything. Like Quasimodo and that Esmermolda…-whatever dame."

Doc looked up at me, his not-so-bulbous eyes wide. "…H-h-h…" He sputtered. "…How do you know?"

"Doc," I spoke up after a deep breath. "Just try to get some sleep. We can't have you dying on us too soon." Before I walked out of his room, I said, "Don't you fret, Cockroach. 'Night."

Inside I cursed up a storm when that door was shut. Me and my big mouth. Instead of ripping off a part of that antenna, I wanted to rip my own hair out. Yes, he hasn't looked at me like that since the time I played that metal guitar solo in Michael Jackson's "Beat It" for the perfectly first time, but thanks to my impatience, all (meaning our friend the garbage gut & you readers) know a hint. A dumb stupid teaser trailer. Coming soon whenever I really lose it or when Liv and/or Elijah tell all.

I went to my room and looked at the metal chair next to my bed. Out of frustration, I kicked it. It fell over with a loud crash against the floor, but oh, god, was my foot killing me. Thankfully, everyone was in bed now. I grunted what I had just said a few minutes earlier on while hopping on one leg over to my bed. I took off my boot and noted a nice handsome little bruise on the top of my right toe nail. I wanted to leave my little dungeon of a room but waited until the pain died down.

I walked into Liv's room as I wanted to check on her. The moment she let me in, I was struck with the change in her. She was pale. Her eyes were a dreary tired brown color and red. The amount of grey-white and brown in her hair was about equal. She was no longer the bright, beautiful fairytale whom I always saw her as. She did look like Liv but more like a bit of the corpse she would become in a few short weeks.

"Did you tell him?" She asked, her voice cracked and dry.

"You watched us?" I gawked before shaking my head no.

"No." She led me by the hand, and we sat down on the bed together. "With the look on his face, I figured it out. It was on my face when I found Walter dead in his room with an empty arsenic bottle in his hand. It was also on your face when—"

"Don't say it." I hissed, knowing where she was going. I wanted to change the subject, so I asked, "How's Monger?"

She shook her head.

"Is he dead?"

"No…no…" She muttered, tears spilling down her face. "Not yet." She looked up at me and saw my lower chin quivering. It is said that great minds think alike, and we must've had those great minds as we pulled each other into a tight embrace. I felt her hot tears slide down my shoulder. Nonetheless, I refused to cry; I had to be the strong one now.

_Don't die. _I muttered and thought at the same time. _You can't die. You can't leave me. _

~The following day…

Elijah's POV

"Holy!" I puffed, sweat soaking my forehead.

"I hear ya, buddy." Link responded wearily as he slid lazily into his pool.

"How'd it go?" Susan asked.

"Do—ouch!" Phyllis winced while putting an ice pack over her eye and grumbling, "Don't ask."

Link, Phyl, BOB, Insecto, and I came back from a monster mission in Manila, the Philippines. Without Susan, Doc, Liv, and Jenny's help, it was pretty rough out there. Not only was it hot and humid from us moving around but also 'cause of that stupid greenhouse climate. We fought a couple of alien scouts, and boy they didn't go easy on us. Insecto had to have bandages on one of her legs, Phyl got a good socking in the eye, and Link and I had a few handsome scars on our bodies.

"You alright?" Liv asked me, hugging me and stroking the back of my ears.

"Yeah," I nodded. I still had a hard time accepting that she would be gone soon. Every time I looked at her, I'd have to stiff upper lip.

"Elijah? Olivia?" We heard the seemingly long lost familiar British accented voice call from behind. Doc! B.O.B. slid over and gave him a hug. Thankfully Jenny grabbed his waist away before he could be absorbed.

"Hey, look who's back from the dead." Link commented, patting his once monster friend on the back.

"Back off, macho bunny!" Phyl growled in defense. Link shrugged as Doc sat down, a little peeved that he was called something as wimpy as 'bunny'.

"Thank you." Doc mouthed at Phyl with a sad smile on. Smirking back, she clicked her tongue and winked her good eye in response. I sat down at the table where Doc was to catch a breather and thank God a bottle of cold water dropped in front of me. I greedily gulped down the crisp liquid and didn't stop until half the bottle was gone.

"Hey, Doc." I greeted, setting down the bottle with a _thud! _

"Hello, my dear boy." He said back. "Might I have a word with you and Olivia?"

"Sure, no probs, Doc." I gave him a thumbs up. "Hey, Liv?" I looked at Liv who was gently treating Phyl's black eye. "You're not going anywhere today?"

"No, I'm not." She responded. "Monger has an appointment today, so I'm not needed."

"Great. You wanna take a trip to the doctor's office?"

"Elijah, I just said—"

"Not _that _'doctor's office'. Ya know…" I gestured at Doc's bedroom door.

"Okay."

**So I've got about three more weeks til summer break. Then I can REALLY get crackin'! Thanks to all SO STINKING much for the reviews and comments!**


	9. Understanding Each Other

**Again, I slacked. I mean I knew what was going on in this chap, but how to write it was a challenge. But holy catfish, it's been quite some time. Gotowi? Film Rolka! (Ready? Roll film!)**

_No POVs_

The door slid shut, and the light turned on. The once monsters and the coyote boy sat down on metal chairs.

"So, Doctor, what do you want to talk about?" Liv asked.

"What's there to talk about?" Elijah added boringly. Liv glared daggers at him. "Sorry."

"Suffice it to say…" Dr. Cockroach began nervously. "Well…um…it's about Phyllis."

"What about Phyllie?" Elijah asked.

"Well, not that long ago, she expressed something along the lines of losing a loved one. How you want to die along with them but a part of you does."

Liv's blood ran mild cold. It was the same feeling she felt when finding Walter dead. "I know what she means." She responded. "Years ago, not that long before you found us at Ushuaia, she felt that. Do you remember those few times we mentioned a fellow named Sean?"

Dr. Cockroach nodded.

"Sean was a mutant: part-human, part-falcon. Ever since they met at age eighteen, Sean and Phyllis were lovers. When they were twenty, Sean's twin sister, Eva, died. She was the girl with the batwings when we were in that alien prison. Heartbroken, Sean vowed to escape as soon as he and what remaining monsters could. He and Phyllis vowed together that once they were free they would marry.

"By the time it was just him, Phyllis, Elijah, and me, he had found a way out, that clever boy. And…" Overwhelmed, she stopped and lightly hyperventilated, holding herself and staring at her lap.

Dr. Cockroach looked over at Elijah. "I guess you don't want to talk about it either."

"You know right."

"M-may I show you something?" The scientist asked. Liv and Elijah nodded their heads in unison. Dr. Cockroach pulled a sheet off of another contraption and presented it to his to viewers with a simple pride.

"What does it do, Doc?" Elijah asked.

"It's a memory scanner." Dr. Cockroach announced. "I invented it for old time's sake."

"Wow." Liv finally spoke up after pulling herself together. "Sounds like the best photo album of all time."

"Yes," He chuckled. "I guess, I guess it is, not to pat myself on the back or anything. Thankfully, you can use more than one person's memory at a time for this. Problem is, you'll both need to be asleep."

"Alrightie." Liv responded.

"Ditto." Elijah agreed.

"Say, what was the approximate time of this…ahem, event?"

"Sometime the second week of October 2014."

"Okay. Are we ready?"

The human and monster nodded and eventually fell asleep. Dr. Cockroach waved a hand and gently called their names a couple of times. Their slumber confirmed, he placed a spandex-like cap with wire on each head leading to a computer. He flipped a switch, and a gentle whirring signaled the turned on machine.

_Seventh…7…October…10…2014…_He mentally sorted with the date slot. A quartet of prisoners sat around in their cells sulking.

_No. How about the eighth? _A shivering Phyllis lay beside a winged boy with brown ruffled hair, both asleep with their arms wrapped around each other.

Dr. Cockroach smiled. _This must be Sean. Now, the ninth…_This day was different. It was a little past midnight, he guessed. Liv, Elijah, Phyllis and Sean sat on a dock. The machine's screen split into two, one side each for each memory. Through the two different points of view, a story was presented.

_Sean slowly floated back up to the slick black dock and climbed up to the female monsters. _

"_Is he okay?" Liv whispered. Earlier on Sean carefully descended while hanging onto a younger Elijah and setting him on the ground. The coyote boy hid among the rocks below. Thankfully, the crashing of ocean waves surpassed the sound of wings flapping and Elijah landing. _

_Sean nodded. "Okay, Phyl, your turn." He whispered._

"_Okay." Phyllis nodded, nervous but confident. _

"_Wait." He held her hand down. Liv and Phyllis were confused about why he was doing this. He pressed his lips against hers in a kiss._

"_Why did you do this? We're not even married yet." Phyllis asked._

"_Use this as a debut for our new life," He winked at her. She smiled and kissed him again. He wrapped his arms under hers and prepared for takeoff. Liv didn't need to be carried down as she already had wings. The three monsters slowly flew down toward the ground, getting closer to their freedom with each foot of distance. _

_Loud, high-pitched siren alarms unexpectedly sounded from the ship _(which made Dr. Cockroach jump and yelp)_. "Liv! Fly away!" Sean called. The winged dwarf flew in different directions to gradually descend to be with Elijah. She screamed in surprise as a set of mechanical claws captured her in its grip. Hearing the scream, Sean turned around and quickly glided over the ocean. There he dropped Phyllis into the cold waters to protect her from being injured on the rocks below after the fall. _

_The winged young man darted as quickly as he could toward Liv. A small cannon came out of a compartment on the bottom of the ship, ready to blast her. Adrenaline coursed through his body. He wrapped his arms and wings around her just in time for it to fire. His wings were strong alright. But not strong enough to save himself. _

_Believing to have hit its target, the cannon returned to its original state, and the ship flew off into the galaxy. Feeling shaken from the blast and now carrying a body heavier then hers, she gently sunk to the ground. Elijah assisted her as they laid Sean's broken body down. A huge hole stained with red and purple covered his back and half of his wings. The mortal injury proceeded to a smaller hole on his torso. His labored breathing and occasional coughing confirmed he was still alive. But both Elijah and Liv knew he wouldn't be alive for much longer._

_Footsteps caught their attention as Phyllis marched-crawled through the slippery rocks courtesy of her wet prison uniform. "Is everyone alright?" She asked, wiping a strand of hair away from her face. Elijah and Liv looked at her with blank sad faces and heavy hearts. Hearing the coughing and labored moaning, Phyllis rushed over to Sean._

"_Sean, it's me. Look at me." She whispered. His eyes opened, gradually losing focus."It's your Phyllis."_

"_Phyl," He called. _

"_I'm here, Sean." She grasped his hand. _

_He weakly smiled. "Take care…of them…" He coughed again, blood spilling out of his mouth, and shut his eyes. "Phyl…I love…I love…I love you…" His hand fell limp in hers._

_Sean was dead. _

"_Sean?" Phyllis called, her voice cracking."Sean?" She grasped his shoulders, lightly shaking him. "No…no…Sean…Sean, if you die,… I die!" She laid her head against his chest, not giving a darn when her hair became soaked in his blood. She wailed, tears trailing from her eyes and dropping in his wound._

Shaking, Dr. Cockroach slid over to the next day.

_The three survivors stood solemnly in the tides of the ocean. Apparently this was a small memorial service for their deceased friend/lover. Phyllis and Elijah stood waist-deep in the waves and Liv fluttered over the waters. Floating by their side was Sean's body. Elijah plucked a clean white feather from one of the wings and gave it to Phyllis. She sadly smiled and had him hold it for a moment or two. She dove towards the bottom and grabbed a sharp-edged stone. Once she emerged, she cut off a lock of blond-and-blue hair and tucked it into a cleft of his wing. _

_Together, Elijah and Phyllis shoved the corpse into the outer waves and watched it float away and gradually sink into the abyss. With the same sharp rock Phyllis carved his name, birthday, and what she thought his death date was onto a smooth flat rock on the beach. _

_The three monsters walked away from the tides, realizing they needed each other. Other than that, they were alone now. _

The door slammed open. "Li, Liv," A familiar voice called. "I kinda figured you were with the garbage gut, so-" Phyllis gasped at the sight of her surrogate family unconscious with their heads tied to a machine. "What the heck are you doing?" She shrieked at the scientist.

"Phyllis, wait!" Dr. Cockroach called.

"If they told you, I'm gonna kill 'em." She stormed away from the cell. "Or if you sabotaged them to make them tell you, I guess I'm gonna have to kill _you _instead!" She turned around in a flash and grabbed him by the front of his lab coat and turtle neck sweater.

"Phyllis, they agreed to let me do this." He told her apprehensively, trying to look away from her outstretched fist.

"You're kidding, right?" She asked.

"Nope." Elijah asked from behind, smiling smugly with arms crossed. Liv stood alongside shaking her head.

Phyllis' eyes shot open and she let go of Dr. Cockroach. He sighed with relief and adjusted his clothes.

"Well, what do you three have to say for yourselves? Huh?" She asked. Dr. Cockroach stood up.

"Phyllis, I'll say this on my part." He spoke up. "One, I'm sorry if I ticked you off by learning about what happened. Two, I'm sorry about what happened to you."

She rolled her eyes and smirked. "Ya know, Cockroach? I guess that explains the whole anger management mess when I first came. I've learned to let it go. I had and still have these two—Li and Liv—to take care of. It wouldn't be fair if I got the melon of a dipstick and have _them _take care of me. Even with the shoot going on now, I have to be strong."

Dr. Cockroach's eyes started fluttering and became slightly damp.

"Cock, seriously; don't look at me like that. I still miss Sean, and I know you'll still miss your Di girl like the mad man you are for a while. Doc, what did I just say?"

He tried to swallow a lump in his throat.

"Oh, what the heck…" She grumbled. Surprisingly, she reached to hold him. He remained in his arms for what felt like hours. She pulled back from him. He pulled the hankie from his lab coat pocket and blew his nose into it. "I guess we understand each other now."

He airlessly chuckled and smiled. "I guess we do, Phyllis."

"Put 'er there." The two shook hands in a truce. The eight-year feud between Electrill and Dr. Cockroach was history.

**Finally! (mad scientist laughs) No new couple in this story; just friends. **


	10. Last Day

**Okay, I finally got some idea of what to do with my stories! Yay! Gonna be gone for the rest of this week and next week, so no updates for a while.**

_I don't want my old life back! _She recalled herself saying all those years ago. Even now, that's what Susan was saying on the inside. Since she lived in a top secret prison facility and was no longer a giantess, she really didn't have much to take home with her. Maybe a couple of pictures of her with her family and/or her monster friends at various places around the world; otherwise, that was it. Given two days to hit the road, she received a package of hair dye to give her back her original brown hair color.

Your once-transparent friend Jenny has the mutual feelings too. She enjoyed my life being an invisible monster, so she had a hard time packing. She had always been at the average size, so she had more things to pack than Susan. And good grief was she upset about leaving the life she loved and going back to the one before. It wasn't even time to say good-bye yet and she was been breaking into tears every five minutes while packing.

The month had passed. With no hope, the monsters were made to split. Susan and Jenny, the now humans, were being deported from the facility and returned to Modesto and Prince George. The names Ginormica and Invisoline were just a part of history, as were Dr. Cockroach and Faytale. It was decided by the government that as soon as both Liv and Dr. Cockroach were dead that Ginormica and Invisoline would be pronounced dead as well.

The good news was Monger was allowed to come back but kept to his office or bed. He dragged an oxygen tank around with him and could only do so much at a time. He was finishing up the final details of the will. Amanda Hathaway was there at the facility often nowadays following his direction to prepare for her future position and getting acquainted with Link, Phyl, Li, BOB, and Insecto, the-still monsters. She sat with them during meals and chatted with them on and off during the day.

Link and Phyllis had learned of their responsibilities to come. Being strong as it was, they were proving to do their job well. Having confidence in his team, he felt assured that they could take care of this problem in no time. Thus, he really didn't worry until now. He was even a little unsure about being a leader. Yes, he had the gung ho, alpha monster personality, but how was he going to do this? Would they still be a team? What if they were imprisoned again courtesy of him making wrong choices? Hopefully Amanda would help him.

Elijah had contracted a series of nightmares in the middle of that month. It was the same every night. Pale as death and too weak to sit up, Liv would lie on her bed in his lap, her fluid-filled lungs rapidly fighting in vain for another gasp of air. "Help!" She would weakly cry. Her tired sunken eyes would be glued to his. "Elijah, help me! Please! You've got to help me!" The breathing would slow. A pain would rise in her chest. Her eyelids would gently flutter to a close. The aged frail wreck of her body would sink limp in his arms. These dreams would deprive him of sleep and the alertness of his abilities in his missions.

Liv would be there to comfort him and help him go back to sleep. But now her age finally caught up with her, and she couldn't be with him as much anymore, gradually leaving Phyllis to take her place. She had just received a cane after shuffling to get around for the last two days with the occasional wheelchair. Her hair was a coarse white with a mild brown still here and there, and wrinkles graced her face. The Area 51 staff no longer called her Faytale but Miss Roberts instead. Dr. Cockroach also now went by Dr. Bennett, Susan as Miss Murphy, and Jenny as Miss Griffin. The four were now labeled by the government as humans.

Jenny's POV

"Okay…okay…" I coached herself, taking in deep breaths. "I gotta take a break from this." Nonetheless, seeing another photograph of me and my teammates at Miami made me start bawling again. BOB came up next to me, carrying a huge container of ice cream with him.

"Neapolitan ice cream?" He offered. It was my favorite flavor. Boy did he know me well. I didn't even get to thank him and buried my face in my hands. Seeing me cry, he began to sob uncontrollably, and we wrapped our arms around each other until he accidently sucked me into his body. He spat me out and stood me up straight.

"Thanks, BOB," I whimpered.

"The less for me." He sadly smiled and handed me a big metal spoon. I dug the utensil deep into the plastic container, getting each flavor and coming up with a large mound. I opened my mouth wide and could already taste the chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. The cold goodness melted in my mouth, but something felt wrong. It felt metallic against my tongue, cold and stinging. My eyes shot open. My tongue got stuck to my spoon.

"Ma pong's suck. Hell me!" I began to panic. BOB desperately grabbed the handle of the spoon and began to pull.

"BOB! No!" Susan cried, rushing away from her two cardboard boxes over to me. "That'll only make it worse." She looked at me. "It's gonna be okay, Jen. C'mon, you guys; we need warm water."

BOB, believing that desperate times call desperate measures, scooped me up. Where was he taking me? Where was he taking me?

"Look out below!" He bellowed. The next thing I knew he tossed me into warm water. My eyes opened, and the spoon was released from my mouth and sank to the bottom of the fifteen-foot-deep pool. A large hand pulled me out and set me on a nearby rock.

"For crying out loud, Jen, ask next time!" Link told me. He grumbled at the sight of ice cream mixing with the water. "Or at least warn me! Seriously, what the halibut…"

BOB scooped me up and carried me back to the table. "Sorry." He sulked. I smiled and whispered, "S'okay." The spoon came flying out of Link's pool and…it hit me in the head.

I gasped in shock, and BOB gasped, ashamed of his fishy friend. I put my hand over my mouth to muffle a laugh, but out came a snort. Before we knew it, we were laughing our heads off. I looked up at the others, their facial expressions confused and weirded out.

"Man, that was great!" BOB remarked after a belly laugh. "By the way, what were we laughing at?"

"I don't know!" I played along. "But wasn't it something else or what?"

"I don't know either!" We broke again into crazy laughter, crazier than Doc's. At the end of laughing 'til our stomachs hurt, I wiped a couple tears away. I was really going to miss that guy.

Later that night…in Dr. Cock—(nix that) Dr. Bennett's room…

He checked his wristwatch. Three-forty-five a.m.? Wow! He whistled in surprise. What a magical time really late nights could be. It was as if time had stopped. As if the world had stopped. Nothing was happening except for the nerdy tinkering around in his laboratory.

Having checked out his and Liv's DNA, he decided to branch and venture out in a hunt for his other cohorts' DNA. He already checked out Jenny, Phyllis and Susan's, and was now finishing up on Link's DNA. Being as Link was a hybrid of man, fish, and ape, he spent almost a whole day observing this wonder. Once done, he turned to Elijah's DNA and enlarged a microscopic image. Once again fascinated, he meticulously stared at the joint DNA of human and coyote come together.

A dim beeping surprised him and made him jump in his chair. He fell back along with his chair in a timber. Rubbing his head, he straightened back up. A certain strand of Elijah's DNA flashed on the screen. Looking to the thumbnails of the other DNAs, he noticed that Phyllis' too was flashing in unison.

**Prayer to amazing writer and friend ThisCatalyst'sPen: Please give us back your wonderful MvA stories. Missin' them like a mad lady. :'( *sniff* …or you will pay…**


	11. Mysteries

The monsters, Susan, Amanda, and I stood in the middle of the room. Due to governmental delays and another monster mission in the Yukon to fight zombie Eskimos, Susan and I were allowed to stay another three days despite the fact they were still labeled as humans. Meanwhile, Doc was pushing with all his might to get his memory scanner to his friends. He even started grunting and even mumbled in frustration off and on.

"Doc, next time just ask for help." Link said before picking up the contraption, making the scientist fall to the ground.

"Alright." Doc mumbled, out of breath and rubbing the back of his head. "But be gentle with it, Link."

Link wiped away a light layer of sweat from his brow after setting down the machine on the floor. Amanda stood next to the fish-ape and asked, "Are we ready?"

"Yup!" Link replied.

"Okay. 'Sapien! 'Trill!" She called, pressing a button on a remote drawn from her suit pant pocket. "Bring 'em in!"

Elijah and Phyllis jogged into the room, each pushing a wheelchair. Elijah pushed Liv while Phyllis had Monger. "Sheesh!" We barely heard Phyllis grumble. "How many bricks does he carry in his pockets?"

"Heard that!" Monger snapped, his voice hoarse.

With the lack of Susan's great height and strength, a cat walk with rails lifted up the aged humans to their colleagues. Doc began hooking up the memory scanner to the main power source at his lab table. Liv and Monger weakly smiled at each other and held hands. If they could only live longer than expected, they would've been a perfect pair. That's just coming from me.

"Phyllis, my dear," Liv called once Elijah locked the wheels on her chair. The blond-haired monster dashed to her companion's side.

"Yeah?" She asked, kneeling down in front of Liv.

"Dear," Liv began, taking Phyllis' gloved hand with her wrinkled bony hand. "You know how I want you to take care of and look after Li when I'm gone?"

"Don't say that." Phyllis lightly snapped. "Yeah?"

"Electrill, you too, Coyo-" Monger spoke up. He coughed into a hankie, and a copious amount of mucus sprinkled with blood fell into the slightly stained cloth. I cringed. I hated blood.

"Easy does it, General," Amanda warned. "Don't overdo it."

"Thank you, Miss Hathaway. As I was saying, Dr. Bennett here has been observing y'all's DNA."

"Stalker." Link teased. Doc glared daggers at him.

"Electrill, we did find a little something while testin' out stuff." Monger continued.

"General, what do you mean?" Susan asked.

BOB gasped. "Are you pregnant?" I muffled a chuckle.

"'Better not be." Phyllis growled. "Cause if I am, the father's gonna bite himself some dust."

"Yeah, besides if she was pregnant," I said. "She would have to ha—oh, never mind."

"What?" BOB asked.

"We'll tell you when you're older." Elijah replied, rolling his eyes.

"Doctor, would you care to explain before this goes any further?" Liv asked, dying to change the subject.

"As General Monger put it, ladies and gentlemen, while I was discerning the coyote genes of Coyosapien's deoxyribonucleic acid from the human genes and observing Electrill's deoxyribonucleic acid, it was—"

"Bennett, please!" I groaned, yet smiling at the fact I could now call him that without getting in trouble. "Just cut it out with the language of Scient-ese."

"Sorry…it was shown that you two, Phyllis and Elijah, could be related."

"What?" Elijah and Phyllis gawked in unison.

"Doc, seriously," Elijah raised his lip. "Even if I didn't have all this fur, we'd look nothing alike."

"Not so fast, son." Monger intervened. "I had an older sister too yet we looked nothing, and I mean nothing, alike."

Phyllis' POV

This had to be nonsense. A bunch of catfish, shoot, however you put it. Outraged, I had to stop them. And show 'em, too!

"Well, we'll see about that!" I retorted and marched up to Bennett. "Tell me, Doc, did you bring this piece of work just for now?"

"That I did, my dear." He answered, unsure.

"Great. Hook me up. Do I have to knock out for this one?"

"No, I enhanced it a bit. You don't have to sleep. Do you like it?"

"What's not to like?" I shot back sarcastically. I sat down at a metal chair as he placed a spandex cap on my scalp. He looked at Elijah and Liv.

"Elijah, Olivia, you too." The coyote boy wheeled the elderly human towards Doc. "Olivia, you don't happen to remember Elijah's mother, do you?"

"I do, in fact." Liv answered. Doc pulled out the second cap.

"Do you mind?" She shook her head, and the device was attached to her head.

"Great job, Doctor." Monger chuckled with a grand smile on his lips, so grand that even a cough couldn't kill it.

"Phyllis, what was your mother's name?" Liv asked as soon as Doc turned on the machine.

"Janelle." I said through gritted teeth. Liv and Elijah's eyes shot so open that Elijah's yellow "whites" turned starch white. "Oh, jelly…Janelle…Penniman." At the instance of thinking about Mom, a large image showed up on one of the grey walls. I turned around to the wall and jumped back in surprise. "Gah! Doc, how in the—a projector?"

Doc didn't respond but froze. So did everybody else. Insecto roared in surprise.

"It's Phyllis! Look you guys!" BOB shouted. "Only with no blue hair."

"No, BOB; that's not Phyl." Susan corrected, awestruck. From the projector and scanner showed a video still of a smiling, tired but smiling, woman with blue eyes and my color of hair. She wore a red-and-white pin-striped blouse over her protruding stomach and a pair of white capri pants. I'll bet anything up and down my eyes softened like never before. A sad smile grew on my face, and I sighed.

"Spittin' image." Link whistled.

Liv's hand reached to touch Elijah's left hand. "Li," She looked at me too. "This was the last time I saw your mo—…Janelle." She nodded her head at Doc.

The sweet picture turned into a trauma, a nightmare, basically a polar opposite. On a too familiar cold filthy floor lay a woman. Her eyes were sunken and closed. Her face was pale and hollow. Her body was bony and thin with the tips of her hands and feet blue. To everyone, she didn't look like the Janelle they saw in the first picture.

I knew who it was. I didn't want to but I did. Long forgotten memories rose from their graves.

_"Mom, what are we gonna do? Dad doesn't know I'm a mutant…what about the baby?"_

_ "Don't worry, Phyl. We'll think of something."_

_ …_

_ "Your favorite is tuna-fish sandwich, peanut butter cookies, and Hawaiian Punch, right?"_

_ "Yep, yep."_

_ "Well, that's for lunch today."_

_ "Yay!"_

_ "Don't forget. You, Dad, and I are gonna take about our plans after school, okay?"_

_ "Okay, Mom."_

_ "Bye, Phyllie-Willie. I love you."_

_ "I love you too…"_

I fell from the chair onto my knees on the floor. My hair and my watering eyes blinded me, but who gave a hoot?

"She died three days after you were born." I heard Liv tell Li. A "nu-uh" from Monger behind me, and I'll never know why. I collapsed onto her stomach, now lying on the floor, and broke out into tears and wailing. I tried so hard to recover myself but every time I looked up to her see Mom, my dead long-gone mom, it was no use.

Doc reached over to remove the cap. I sat up instantly in a flash. "No!" I protested. "I get it already! 'Might was well show my dad! What about him, huh?"

"Just what I wanted to hear. Go ahead, Electrill." Monger said. A picture of a man came up next. He wore a soiled white cheap T-shirt and a pair of jeans and appeared to be fixing something like a small stepladder at a garage workbench. His eyebrows were mostly covered by a head of slightly ruffled black hair. His irises were a gentle grey that seemed to smile along with the grin on his face.

_"So you got a crazy math test today, huh, sunshine?"_

_ "Yeah…and a science one too."_

_ "I'm sure you'll do a great job."_

_ "Oh my gosh, the bus is here! Bye, Dad!"_

_ "Go get 'em, Phyllie!"_

"So if Janelle's supposed to be me and Phyllis' mom, then this guy's my dad?" Elijah asked. "Phyl, what was your dad's name?"

"Mark." I replied while admiring her childhood superhero. Tears of sentiment yet pain still flooded my face. "With 'Penniman' at the end."

Elijah's POV

My heart raced in my chest. If Phyl and I were siblings, what was with the rearranged last names?

"Penniman?" I gaped. "But my last name's Cordova!"

"Well, Li, (pardon me)," Liv began after a cough. "Your mother married another monster, a human-gecko hybrid named Dillon Cordova. Do you remember what that alien said four years ago?"

"Wasn't it something like he imprisoned Janelle because she was a monster but killed Phyl's dad, Mark, on the spot because he was a human?" Susan suggested.

"Thank you kindly, Ginormica," Monger said. "But, em, Miss Roberts, what about this Cordova fella here?"

"He was expected to be around when Elijah would be born but caught some disease brought in by another prisoner and died about a week before Janelle did."

I could only stare at the man. That was my dad? That was…Dad?

"If you don't mind me saying so, dear boy," Doc began. "You do bear a resemblance to him."

"What?" My head and right ear cocked in confusion.

"Here!" Phyl intervened. She covered my wet nose with her hand and took turns looking at me and her father. "Same hair texture…same face shape…whooooaaaaa…."

"'Whoa' what? The resemblance?" I asked, a bit frustrated.

"No, I should've figured out in the first place. Why the heck didn't I? You have Janelle—(scoffs) Mom's eyes. That same blue. Okay, I'm letting go of your nose."

I shook his head like a wet dog shakes his body. "Thank you. Hey, Doc, how about those DNAs? You got slides of those too, right?"

"That I do, just wait a moment." The microscopic images of intertwining strands appeared on the screen, the matching parts highlighted in red.

My thoughts of wonder could've gone on and on until a fit of coughing erupted from behind. Amanda pulled out the walkie-talkie and said, "Get a couple of nurses in here, immediately." She turned to us. "Missing Link, Electrill, come with me." The senator and two monsters rushed Monger onto the catwalk and out through the huge door. "Dr. Bennett, Coyosapien, take care of Miss Roberts!"

End of POV

"That coughing didn't sound right." Doc took note.

"No, it didn't." Liv agreed, her tired eyes wide with worry.

"What do you mean?" BOB asked.

"It appeared that that one coughing fit was different from the other ones Monger has had for the past few weeks. Have any of you heard of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease?"

"Um, no." Jenny answered. _Here we go again…_

"Maybe," Susan shrugged. Elijah shook his head.

"Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, better known as COPD, is a lung disease that eventually worsens over time. Its main symptom is constant coughing, shortness of breath, and common bouts of the common cold, influenza, and pneumonia."

"And pneumonia is what Monger has, right?" Elijah asked.

Doc and Liv sadly nodded their heads.

"Really?" Jenny theorized. "'Cause my grandma Griffin died of the flu last summer, so I guess it's really a big deal with old people. Eh, Bennett?"

"Right you are, Jennifer my dear," Liv said. "And I don't think he has much longer."

"So," BOB spoke up after a few seconds of silence to Elijah. "Are you and Phyl really brother and sister?"

The coyote boy didn't say anything, staring at the pictures of the DNA and the pictures of Phyllis and probably his dad and Janelle. He didn't know what to say or do. He didn't know how to feel. The metal door opening killed his obsessive focus.

"Guys?" Amanda called frantically. "We need you all in here right now!"

**Another cliffie…sorry, gang. My beach and camping trips went great, and now I'm home. Just as a random A/N, if you want a REALLY good biography to read, read **_**Catch Me If You Can **_**by Frank Abagnale. I read it over my camping trip and it rocked! **


	12. What Are We Gonna Do?

Only Liv, Phyllis, Link, and Amanda were allowed inside. Doc and Elijah leaned against the wall, each taking turns looking at their feet and the double doors. Susan sat down in one of the six chairs in the hallway and read her local newspaper, trying to hide her worry. I sat next to her and messed around with a Rubik's cube, not caring whether I solved the dumb thing or not. BOB sat next to me, filling up the rest of the chairs, and counted the tiles on the ceiling.

"If something goes wrong, Doc," BOB spoke up upon finally noticing our grave expressions. "Ya know, with Liv or Monger, what'll we do?"

Doc rubbed his forehead aggregately and didn't really want at all to tell my darling every word of his fate, so he mumbled, "I don't know."

"Yes, you do." I hissed through gritted teeth.

"Fine then, if _you _know, then _you _tell him!" He snapped.

"Sheesh." I growled. "So, BOB, remember what Amanda said?" I reminded him. He shrugged. "She, Link and Phyl are gonna take care of you."

"Yeah, that's right." He nodded. "I remember now."

Doc looked at me. "I'm sorry, Jennifer, about my behavior." He apologized. "It's just that—"

"S'okay, Bennett." I consoled, standing up out of my chair and patting his shoulder with my hand. "Um…Rubik's?" I offered.

"No, thank you, my dear; I've solved it several times. Lost count actually." He slightly smiled in vanity.

Boringly, I twisted away at the stupid block a few times and…

"Wait!" BOB cried. Everybody exclaimed in surprise.

"Don't! Do that!" Elijah snarled.

BOB widely smiled as he swerved a piece and…well, I'll be. I—he—we did it. He gasped. "Billie?"

"What?"

"We're…"

"Geniuses!" We chimed in unison.

"Sshh!" Susan shushed.

"Yeah, please." Elijah grumbled. "And don't say it in unison."

"No," I whispered. "Look." I knelt down before Doc as if giving a marriage proposal with the solved cube in my hand.

"Wow…" Susan whispered, smiling. "And I think I've never seen that for reals." Doc smiled, his antennae perking up. The brief escape from cold cruel reality broke when Link opened the door.

End of POV

He could've been a corpse right there in that bed, except that his chest rose labouredly. His fluid-filled demolished lungs fought harder than ever before, even harder than they had done before in the most intense of his military training and war. But he knew well it would be useless soon. He felt Liv's hand stroke his cold-sweat soaked face. No one said anything about it. They knew it all. He did too.

He was dying.

Monger weakly smiled at his love and reached out his shaking hand to hold her wrinkled cheek. At the sound of the doors opening and people/monsters coming into the room, his now-dull green eyes turned from Liv's face toward his pride. The apples of his eye.

Their hearts dropped into their stomach and far beyond seeing their notoriously tough, strong, almost Chuck-Norris-like guardian as weak as most any other man his age. They all, even the toughies, felt like crying but held their heads high and stiffened upper-lip in his honor.

"Howdy, monsters…ladies…doctor…" He greeted wearily.

They all smiled sadly. Some waved shyly and muttered, "Hey, General."

"Y'all…y'all have been somethin' great…in my life…" He slowly glanced at each human and monster. "...'Glad I got to know you…even if I was…a warden…

"Know this…seize the day…the blasted day…'cuz you'll never know…when it's your time…" His eyes fluttered and began to lose focus. He coughed, his entire body shaking. "…Y'all…take care…take care of each other…"

Smiling sadly but proudly, Link gave a strong sturdy salute. Everyone at the military man's bedside joined along. That made Monger chuckle, and a subtle but proud smile grew on his face. The expression began to fade. The strong-chinned head sunk into the pillow. The heart monitor's beep slowed down and finally reduced to a long endless droning. The small odd group retained their salute. "Taps" gently played from a soldier's trumpet.

General Warren Robert Monger was dead.

"Warren?" Liv's cracking elderly voice called. Her bony hands lightly shook pinched parts of the hospital gown fabric. "Warren?

"Warren!" She shrieked in disbelief, her former voice surreally returning. The young voice screamed again but in pain as the elderly woman threw her arms around her chest. The frail body fell limp off the chair it rested in. Elijah caught his surrogate mother in time before she plummeted to the metal floor.

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" Dr. Bennett whispered loudly, hovering over Liv and observing what he could at the moment of her condition.

"Get the undertaker into the hospital ward, immediately." Amanda spoke into her walkie-talkie.

"And get a doctor in here for Pete's sake!" Phyllis added yelling.

"You crazy dame!" Link whispered after he grasped her body in his hands. "What in all that's holy were you thinking? We're taking the lead!"

Phyllis coursed an electric shock into the fish-mans arms. He jumped back and let go, letting out an animal-like growl. "I know." She glared. "Little Miss Mandy may have the reins in her clutches now but that doesn't mean she's got everything down."

"Thank you, Electrill," Amanda peeped. That made Phyllis smile.

"See?" She looked over at Elijah. "Elijah…oh, dang; this has got to be so hard for him."

Later on…

Elijah's POV

It couldn't get any worse. Liv, Jenny, Susan and Doc had to be kicked off the team, Monger died, what next?

"What do you know, Doc?" I finally spoke up after holding myself against the wall. Amanda didn't have us wait in the hospital ward again, and so we stayed in the main room. It was still as tense as if we were waiting in the hallway by those double doors. "About Liv?"

"Elijah, my dear, boy…I'm sorry I can only know so much at the moment." Doc expressed, the antennae dangling in front of his face. "I'm afraid she's…in a coma..."

Link and Phyl came in. Seeing their dreary baggy eyes showed how many hours we were in that room and how late we stayed up, waiting for a good report on Liv.

"Well?" Susan asked, hoping for a little ray of light in our now dark world.

"How do I even put this?" Link hesitated, trying to stay strong.

"I heard you right, Doc." Phyllis stepped in. "She's really in a coma." She cupped a hand over her mouth and shut her eyes tightly. "And I think her time alive has really run short."

I stood up, fighting back against the tears and howling that wanted to burst out. "I'm going."

"You're what?" BOB asked, his head cocked in confusion.

"I'm gonna hunt down that alien ship down and take back what was stolen." I stated and stood tall. "Even if it's the last thing I'll do."

"Li, listen!" Phyl called. "C'mon! Think about it!"

"Last time we saw them was a month ago. They could be anywhere!" Jenny reasoned.

"I've thought about it and don't care!" I turned around to face them. I could feel my eyes bore into their heads and my hair stand up on my tail and back. "I lost my parents and—"

"What about Phyl here?" Link pointed at the blond-haired monster. "She's your sis—"

"I don't know about that yet! But I won't lose any more of my life! I refuse!" I yelled. I noticed a surprise and slightly pained look on Phyl's face. "It may sound like it's all about me, but it's really about you all. If you three—Doc, Link, and BOB—could find Susan and help her become a giant again, we can all, as a team, do it again.

"Monger's gone, Amanda just got started, so we really have no guide, but we've got a little bit of help. We're all we've got and it's all up to us of what we're gonna do about it. So who's with me?"

**Holy…I cannot believe myself in this chapter. Killing a character, something's gotta be wrong with me. Maybe too much sun from camping. **


	13. Seize the Day!

**(light bulb!) Finally got an idea for the plot of this story. But dan it, my friends; you and your reviews… me and my homicidal literature. XD Okay, moving on. **

Jenny's POV

I swear that man is a genius with a capital G. He may have never been able to reverse his freak accident or shrink Susan, but none of that right now. In one hour he put together six walkie-talkies, and not the el cheapo five-dollar kiddie ones. They could get perfect reception up to the other side of the world, even through storms, middle-of-nowhere places, and (who could forget this one) tunnels. Best of all they were nearly undetectable and could fit in your ear. Virtually indestructible and everything-proof, they were perfect for what we were about to get ourselves into. Even though he was a great part of the team, our darling doctor couldn't join us at this time. He needed to stay and monitor Liv's condition and give report if anything changed.

As Monger put it in his last words, we were gonna seize the day today. That was today's motto, simple—nothing compared to Elizabeth Swann's "What shall we die for"—but it meant a lot for us all. Yup, we were going after the sons-of-a-suka ETs. We may never come back the same or come back at all, but BOB, Link, Li, Phyl, Susan, and I were going to take care of business once and for all.

Of course, I, like everyone else, have opportunities to seize the day. As Doc carefully set up the walkie-talkie in my ear, I looked nervously at him.

"Hold still, Jennifer." He instructed, a few short yet long seconds later and, "All done." He sadly smiled and took my hand in his, his red antennae sinking. "God speed, my dear." He whispered. After that, I don't know what got into me. I pulled him into a tight hug and unexpectedly I planted a huge kiss right on the lips. He exclaimed, jumping back with large green-yellow eyes. "I say! Jennifer!"

"Doctor," I began in a damsel-in-distress voice. "…oh, crud; never mind." Holding back a fading chuckle, I thought about it; I may never see that guy again. "Bye, Doc." I saluted him before turning away. "Seize the day."

Link gave me a somewhat disgusted crooked smile. "Guess that's a way to, ya know, seize the dan day."

"True that, man." I high-fived him. The table was piled with all sorts of equipment and weapons, and there sat BOB, bawling like a colicky baby.

"Billie, how could you!?" He shrieked. "You cheated on me!"

"Sweetness," I took his hand. He quickly swiped it away. "It was a good-bye kiss. There's a difference between that and a lovey-dovey kiss. And that's it." He didn't respond but slid away to Doc to have his earpiece installed.

Poor kid. I swear I can be a lot dumber than him sometimes.

Link's POV

From what pictures I saw from satellites, the sun had just risen where we were. Ten years ago, we didn't let Insecto die in vain, even though she really didn't die…yet. This time, Monger wasn't going to die in vain and neither would Liv if we didn't make it back in time or back at all.

Before we could leave, we needed to check things over with Mandy Baby (I like calling Amanda that). She looked at the checklist in her hand and checked out each small square while she double-checked each subject. "You've done great setting things up, you two." She smiled at me and Phyl. "All systems are go. Any questions?"

"Yes," Phyl replied with a smirk on her lips and dark glint in her steel-colored eyes. She grabbed the senator by her arms and got into her face with only a five-inch distance between the tips of their noses. "Can you promise us one thing?" She whispered grimly.

"Yes…if I can…" Mandy squeaked, sticking it out.

"Promise that for the next twenty-four hours you will _not _do a thing with Monger or Liv's bodies; no undertakers, caskets, burials, no anything. Or I will see that you get your due in—"

"Okay, enough sugar for you." I interfered, pulling Phyl off Mandy. "Sorry 'bout that."

"No, she's right about it." Mandy protested. "I'll see to it that they go nowhere." She looked up at me. "You're doing great, Link. Keep at it." She saluted. "Seize the day."

"Yeah, seize the day." I nodded and turned to Doc for him to set up the earpiece. "Better than 'Hail, Gallaxhar', eh, Doc?" I asked him teasingly.

He sadly smiled and gave out a muffled chuckle. "Good luck, Link." He gave my large index finger a good shake.

"Thanks a lot, man. Take care of Liv for me, will ya?"

"Of course, Link." I turned around to grab a utility belt from the table. "You still love her, don't you?" I paused.

_Not now, man. _C'mon, I still loved Liv, despite the fact she couldn't be mine. Monger was dead and could never come back. It had been four years since that love triangle happened, but was I still one of her two heroes or was our dead head honcho her only hero? "How much longer does she have to live?"

"At an average, she has twenty-four hours left." He looked away sadly. "I'll give you an update or two if anything changes."

"Thanks, man." He shook my large index finger with his seemingly small hand. "We're gonna kick butt and come back. Seize the day."

Everybody was ready. Earpieces were intact, what weaponry that could be hidden were secured but ready for whatever came in their way, game-faces were on, and all systems were go.

"Seize the day." We saluted each other either in "good luck" or "good-bye."

"And may the Force be with you." BOB added. We rolled our eyes as we moved on forward toward the main hall to where Mandy was waiting for us. No turning back now.

End of POV

"Just think!" BOB told Susan, lightly bouncing his fists in anticipation. "You're gonna be Ginormica again!" The former giantess responded with a sad, cheesy smile. The blob, still angry at what his fiancé did, ignored Jenny.

"BOB," Jenny tried to respond. "And I'm gonna-"

"Go away." He said, in a childlike cold voice. "You don't like me."

"Yes, I _do_." BOB slid on forward as if the college-age girl never said a thing.

~A few hours later…

The four monsters and two humans were flown to the Philippines where the alien forces last attacked.

"So…" BOB asked. "What are we planning again?"

"Just wait and see, Jell-O head." Phyllis sneered. "We don't have time for this."

"Time for what?"

"Just shut up!" Elijah quietly snapped. His long nails dug four dents into each hand, blood dripping from the small wounds. In his angry and determination, he felt nothing as he stared bitterly at his surroundings.

A too familiar _whump-whump-whump _from only a few days ago pierced the silence, the surrounding exotic flora and fauna fluttering in the wind. The small regiment hid wherever they could find and shielded their eyes to barely see the peculiarly-shaped probe ships glide against the skies.

"Do you think they saw us?" Susan whispered.

No one responded. It became quiet—no, too quiet. No one dared move a muscle, only their eyes. They heard a yelp behind a fern bush…a surreal yellow beam shined down upon it.

"What the-!" The humans and monsters heard Phyllis growl in a whisper. She looked up at the light's owner with hatred only to realize what was happening next. Being abducted, she looked down at her cohorts with fear. Though saying nothing, her large grey eyes seemed to cry a bloody murder _HELP! _

"Oh, no you don't!" Elijah leapt up and grabbed her ankles. "C'mon, guys! Quick!" Jenny served as the next link in the anthropomorphic chain followed by Jenny, Susan, and Link (no pun intended) while BOB grounded Link's ape-like feet to the ground.

The beam then turned purple. Things became fuzzy and started dancing. A strange salt-tasting feeling almost like numbness coated the cheeks and insides of their mouths. Hands were beginning to fail in the chain as if in fatigue or weakness.

"Don't let go!" Elijah ordered. "Don't…let…"

**Cliff hanger! (maniacally laughs) **


	14. Never Again

Jenny woke up and shook off what dizziness she could like a wet dog. Surprisingly, for being one of the bedbugs of the bunch, she was the first one up.

"We're alive!" BOB shouted, raising his fists up in victory.

"Yeah, but not for long." She responded.

"How do you know?" He asked apprehensively, still peeved.

"Look around." Her jaws clenched in frustration. Boy did she have enough with that guy and his attitude. "Remember this?"

"Yeah…" Nothing had really changed much for the last four years, or at least the monsters and humans thought so.

"Sheesh…" Link grumbled, popping his back. "BOB, you're still mad at her? Get a…"

"Life?" Phyl finished. She glared at the too familiar surroundings. "Good luck with that." The Phyllis everyone knew when she became Electrill came back, filled with hatred and anger at life, fate, and the world.

Susan, awoke, rubbing some sore spot on her shoulder. Elijah was still out as everyone was up.

"Hey," Phyl hissed. She shook the coyote boy. "Li, c'mon…we don't have time for this…Elijah…" She huffed in defeat. "Aw, forget it…" And with that she slugged him on the cheek.

"Hey!" He sat up instantly. The shout echoed for miles from where we were. Looking around the surroundings, filled with the "Hey!" bouncing off the walls. Strangely, there seemed to be no response to the cry of surprise and anger.

"Hello?" BOB called. "Anyone home?"

"Sshh!" Everyone shushed as Link slapped a large palm over the blob's mouth.

"Wait…" Link whispered. "Looks like the coast is clear."

"'Looks like'…" Jenny said cynically. "That's sure comforting."

The fish-ape carefully stepped out, looking in both directions as if he were about to cross a street. Everyone gulped.

"What are you doing?" Phyllis hissed.

Link turned around. "Monger's dead and besides Mandy, I'm the leader, right?" All heads nodded.

"And me, alpha-man." Phyllis added.

"Yeah, Phyl, too." Link said. "If anyone's gonna be killed, I wanna be the first."

"Emo." BOB muttered.

"Good luck." Susan wished, eyes wide.

Link stepped out into the behemoth place. It hadn't changed much in the last four years. The corridor, where they were, was still the surreally strange yet familiarly simple place filled with fear, anger, danger, and the unknown. Strangely there were no alien guards or any E.T. inhabitants for that matter ready to take them hostage to prison or death. It was almost like a ghost town—rather spaceship only with great details of a more recent use.

In the manner of his canine persona, Elijah crouched down and quickly ran alongside the wall past Link. He sniffed the air for any trace of his former captors. "Where are you?" He growled through gritted teeth.

"Here I am!" A voice boomed on a PA-like system. It chuckled like a tyrant wannabe. Even though they couldn't see him, Elijah and Phyllis glared at the sound of that slick icy dark voice. "You won't see me…yet.

"As you have probably seen, I suffer a lack of adequate soldiers and staff as I have failed in the past to complete my mission, which some of you may know of."

"Too well." Phyllis grumbled. "Don't remind us."

"Nu uh uh." A _tsk-tsk-tsk _followed. "No interrupting now; we don't have time for that.

"I know what you want, what you're looking for. Well I have it all. And now I shall either be a blessing or a curse. If you find what you want, I'll let you receive it. If you can't find it in due time, things will go back to the way they were, if you know what I mean.

"And so…you have two Earth hours to find what you want. Ready…set…go…"

"What did he mean by going back to the way they were?" Susan asked.

"He meant that if we fail, Elijah, Link, BOB, and I, will be captives again because we're monsters." Phyllis explained. "And…(drat you, you son of a…) Susan, Jenny, you will be killed because you're both humans, like my and Elijah's dad."

"You still believe he's your brother?" Jenny asked.

"With every bone in my body." The blond/blue-haired mutant replied, a determined glint in her grey eyes.

"So we're going after the quantonium," Susan listed. "Doc's cockroach DNA and probably mutagens, whatever made Liv a monster, and Jenny's monocaine."

"Man, this is gonna be the Easter egg hunt of a lifetime." BOB gawked.

"Yep." Jenny nodded. "And we'd better get going."

~Some time later…~ 

After running around the gargantuan spacecraft for over an hour, one would've been exhausted with a layer of sweat soaking their skin and clothing. Not this time. This time, the awareness of this life-or-death chase, mainly for the monsters and possibly mankind as well, played a catalyst for the monsters and humans' adrenaline.

They looked just about anywhere they could think of, breaking up into two teams of three. Susan and Jenny, lacking their being as Ginormica and Invisoline, couldn't be left together. So Link and Jenny were together along with Elijah. BOB, who didn't want to have a thing to do with his former fiancé, stayed alongside Phyllis, leading the way, and Susan, dependent on her cohorts' protection.

Link clicked in his fin-like ear for the earpiece. _Gone! _He thought and hissed at the same time. _Those jackals took 'em out! _He growled. Where were they? Where were the hidden treasures that would make the world right again?

"Li?" He asked the coyote boy. "You know this place a whole lot more than any of us. Where do you think it is?"

Elijah didn't answer, too focused on his mission to respond. He couldn't think of the fish-ape and human girl at his side; he could only think of his dying surrogate mother, of all he knew.

Meanwhile, Phyllis, Susan, and BOB dashed wherever they could have hope of finding anything.

"Phyl!" BOB cried.

"What?" Phyllis yelled back. _Why the H-E-double-hockey-sticks did I get stuck with this idiot? _

"The earpieces are gone!" The females' faces exploded with sudden worry.

"Well, that's some serious jelly." Phyllis huffed in frustration. "But that ain't stoppin' us. C'mon!"

"You have any idea of where everything might be?" Susan asked.

"Well, there's the central room where the old fart usually was when I lived here, but everybody expects that." Phyllis responded. Her head jerked to the left. "And that would be down…there!" Her finger pointed to another long corridor.

While Phyllis, Susan, and BOB followed instinct towards the central room, the other team, trusting but not taking anything for granted, followed Elijah's advice of the possibilities of finding their needs.

Elijah's POV

"I don't know how much time we have left." Jenny said. "Does anyone have an idea? 'Cause I think it's been well over an hour."

"Who knows?" Link growled. "Sometimes, those missions feel like minutes that are really hours and other times the vice versa."

I did my best to listen yet ignore what they were saying. Suddenly, I stopped dead in my tracks. I closed my eyes in focus to smell out the end of our course. "This way." I said under my breath as I took off at the maximum speed my canine abilities would allow me. A subtle smile escaped my lips…this was it. "There it is."

"Not so fast!" A long white tentacle grabbed me by my waist and lifted me up. I tried thrashing my razor sharp canine finger nail-claws through the appendage, only to have the cold vice on me tighten.

"What are you lookin' at?" I shouted at Jenny and Link. "Get out of here!" If anyone was going to die, it was to be me.

"Not on my watch!" Link and the too familiar voice shot back in unison. Two tentacles shot out of nowhere, one each wrapping around the necks of Link and Jenny, now prisoners.

"Remember me, 6915?" The tentacles' owner crawled out from the sides of the wall. The freakish eyes squinted and teeth flashed in a smile with glee.

"Shut it." I said coldly, seemingly in defeat yet not.

In anger of the monster's defiance, he alien slammed me against the wall where several cords were connected to a power core. He began to bash of the head opened the case to the main outlet. There was nothing I could do; I couldn't stop it. Soon I cried and howled in pain as I felt blood spill down my face and electric-like power course through me. I was finally dropped, the landing not really helping much to my pain. I couldn't see; I couldn't think.

I felt like I could die.

End of POV

"What…happened…?" The alien growled.

"What do you mean what happened?" Link yelled. Lights everywhere flickered before letting the world inside turn black.

"Wait…there's a light…" Jenny noticed. A good distance away from behind the alien, a seemingly familiar bright aqua green shone in a large vial. The tentacle around her neck contracted a bit in the hopes for her to stop talking and giving way.

Still hanging onto its captives, the alien crawled up towards the power system. Repulsed at the sight, smell, and taste of the blood left on there, he stared at the main outlet, shaking his head.

"How did this happen?..." His head shot up with a solution. "The Rebel!"

"Lookin' for someone?" A female voice snarled behind him. She held a set of disconnected wires in each hand, minute zaps proclaiming its loss of power. Behind her stood another female human and a gelatinous blob.

"You!" The alien shouted. "The power! My ship!"

"Your power too…" Phyllis shot back.

"Over my dead body, Rebel!" His tentacles snatched her up.

Phyllis' POV

I felt the tiny suction cups from the tentacles tighten a good grip on me, even hurting me. By the look in his eyes, I knew too well what he wanted before he could say anything.

"Hang your friends…for the moment." He snarled. "Once I rid myself of you and the little coyote boy over there, getting a hold of those monsters and humans will be child's play."

_Coyote boy…_His words repeated in my head. Elijah! I looked over where Jenny and Link stood. There lying on the ground bloody, bruised, and weakened by the electrocution was the coyote-human hybrid. Was he dead or alive? Was my friend, my little brother, all I had left gonna be okay? I tried hard to not let tears of worry fall down my cheeks.

"Awww…afraid, are we?" He sarcastically cooed. "Not for long,…your fear will go down to the fish-ape and human…"

I noticed he didn't mention anything about Susan and BOB. I looked towards where I once stood. They were gone. My focus changed as I felt another tentacle slowly wrap around my neck. As I felt my breath gradually cut off, anger built inside me. An anger stronger than any other anger I felt, stronger than the ones felt upon my capture, Sean's death, and becoming part of the team.

The alien cried out and dropped me to the floor. Little did I realize that that anger released a bolt of electricity through his tentacles, releasing his grip on Link and Jenny and leaving him unconscious. The surreal glow behind us was gone. We all felt a steady loud footstep or two and looked up.

Ginormica was back.

End of POV

"Make a break for it! Go!" Phyllis shouted at her cohorts. Susan, now her monster's height, scooped up the ailing Elijah. Phyllis climbed up Susan and crawled towards her brother, saying quietly, "It's okay. You're gonna be okay; just stay with me, alright?", not sure if he had awoke yet. Phyllis, Link, Jenny, and BOB chased the giantess down the corridor towards the docks of the spaceship.

They were only yards away from their freedom when an unexpected tentacle grabbed Phyllis again.

"Phyllis!" The monsters and human cried. Anxiously she grabbed Elijah's hand only to tear off part of one of his long claw-like fingernails.

At the sound of his friends saying his sister's name and the feeling of part of his fingernail ripped off, Elijah opened his eyes only to wince and shut them again. Boy did he feel like crud. He forced them open again, feeling as if they were on fire.

The sinister being crawled to the edge of the dock and hung the monster upside-down by her ankle over the ledge.

"Down there, your friends will plummet to death." He said, smiling wickedly. "And so will you."

Elijah's POV

"Where's…Phyllis…?" I weakly asked. No one seemed to hear my question, so I climbed up Susan's shoulder with what little strength I had. There my former master held her tightly miles over Earth. In a scream of pain, I cried, "Phyllis…"

I heard nothing but a cry. I prayed it wasn't hers.

"What'd you do that for?" I heard his voice shriek.

"That was for taking away my life!"

Another cry.

"This is for killing my dad!"

He cried again.

"This is for seeing my mom to her death!"

Another cry, only weaker.

"This is for murdering my love!"

"Rebel, stop! You'll be nothing but sorry for this!"

I finally realized that with each cry, she had cut off a tentacle with my nail.

"This is for having my brother live in hell!"

The final cry was heard. They were both on the ground, her pinning him down.

"I lost him once! And I will never, never lose him again!" A final cry was let out as she stabbed the nail in his temples.

Before losing consciousness, I felt myself falling. We were all falling. I saw her falling above us.

My sister.

**I couldn't help but have the battle start and end here. If some of this chap didn't make sense, I apologize for it. Only a few more chapters left! Can't wait! And thanks to all for the reviews!**


	15. Once Lost, Now Found

**Yush! Finals are over! Other than helping around the house with ma daddy with cleaning, getting ready for Christmas, and shopping, I'm free for a roll! And after battle, grief, sorrow and downright pessimistic writing, I promise up and down this chapter will be better. Okay, roll film!**

**Elijah's POV**

I woke up after what felt like a goodnight's sleep. Then I realized an oxygen mask had been placed over the lower half of my face. I felt gauze wrap around my head where my hair was. A bald patch with stitches covered with gauze replaced my right eyebrow for the moment. I wasn't the bloody wreck I remembered myself being; I was pretty cleaned up actually. Suddenly, my eyes shot open wide.

"Holy smokes!" I said out-loud. "Doc! Jenny!" I reached for the bed railings to help myself up.

"Take it easy, buster!" A set of bandaged arms laid me back down. "You're lucky you didn't need surgery, and you certainly don't need any operations in the future."

"But what about Jenny and Doc?" I whimpered at the pain of the IV needle sinking into my arm when I bent it. 

"They're fine." I looked up to see Phyllis, smiling tiredly with arms crossed.

"Hey, sis." I muttered. She sat down on my bed.

"You really believe it now?" She asked me, anticipating the truth.

I nodded. "And you know what? I'm not losing you again either." The next thing I knew we were wrapping our arms around each other. A full minute that passed seemed like an hour.

"Love you, bud." She hugged me tighter. In return, I playfully grabbed a strand of her blond-blue here in my teeth and growled as if in a game of tug-of-war. "Try to kick back."

End of POV

Phyllis' POV

I quickly walked down the corridor of the facility hospital where my little brother was staying. My lord, I was more than happy to see that he would live. Yet my heart sunk when I thought of Liv. I screamed in reaction of a pair of hands pinching the skin under my arms and so I swerved around, swinging a leg and sending a fist into the abdomen of my potential attacker.

"Ouch! Sheesh, Phyl!" A girl's voice groaned. I saw nothing but a floating hospital gown bent over in pain…Jenny; one would know it anywhere.

"Sorry I had to do that." I mumbled. "But nonetheless, it's good to have you back. Put 'er there!" We high-fived each other as we were not exactly in the mood for a hug. "How's recovery?"

"Great. I should be out soon; maybe tonight even. C'mon and look!" She ran to her hospital room and pulled out a huge bouquet of lilies with an equally huge "get well soon" balloon. I looked at the little card it possessed.

"'With all my love, BOB'" I read aloud the sloppy handwriting covered in dried blue drips. "So you two made up, huh?"

"Yup, yup; he went back to normal once he saw me as Invisoline and learned from Doc that the bug guy and I were never in love. See you later."

I nodded and winked as she trotted to her room near the entrance, to my surprise. While walking to the end of the corridor to Liv's room, I frowned and crossed my arms; since when did I go soft?

"Anything wrong, my dear?" An annoying British-accented question sounded.

"Not a thing, garbage gut." The Doc, now Dr. Cockroach again, had his handsomely ugly roach head back as of last night when he implanted the retrieved cockroach DNA in himself with a recreation of his telepod-whatever he used all those years ago. "How is she?"

"Err…" He paused, looking at me with unsure green-gold eyes. "Come with me, my dear."

I followed him into a darker room, the above lights dim like an X-ray room. In the center of the room was a hospital bed holding up the unconscious former monster. With all those tubes, hoses, wires, monitors, and a whole bunch of other whatchamacallits, she looked even worse than Li when we brought him back.

"We're putting the serum containing her abilities little by little. If it weren't in her body now, she'd be dead by last night." He showed a tall wide tube holding three separate blue, orange, and yellow—the colors of her past wings. "Yellow seems to represent the fairy part of her, orange representing hobbit, and blue representing elf."

The yellow and blue were nearly gone, and the blue had just begun its course into Liv's body.

**End of POV**

Phyllis and Dr. Cockroach could only stare lady. Soon, the early stages of a metamorphosis began as the serum flowed through her veins. It was as if the magic of the fantasy stories possessing hobbits, fairies, and elves were coming out of fiction and into life. The white hair turned back into the lovely shade of reddish brown with a few faint streaks of grey. The wrinkled frail graying skin softened to the skin of a much younger being, the blotchy spots and protruding veins fading. Clear delicate wings gracefully unfolded from the spine and through the back. Faytale was now restored, only lacking her short height and wing color.

Dr. Cockroach crawled to a phone outside the door of the hospital room, feeling and enjoying the freedom of the return of his cockroach abilities. He picked up the small microphone and punched in the four-digit code to Amanda's office.

"Senator Hathaway. I'm calling for Senator Hathaway." He announced. "This is Doctor Cockroach, PhD."

"Dr. Cockroach, this is Senator Hathaway." Amanda replied. "You're in the hospital ward, right?"

"Yes, Senator. Please come to room #43 where Faytale is, quickly."

"Right away, Doctor. See you both there." Dr. Cockroach hung up.

Slow but steady footsteps and the sound of small squeaky rubber wheels grew louder as Elijah and a walker made their way towards the cockroach man and mutant.

"What are you doing here?!" Phyllis gawked.

"Sshh!" Dr. Cockroach shushed, nodding his head towards Liv.

"Get that furry coyote butt of yours back in bed!" She whispered loudly.

"Hey, Doc." Elijah greeted tiredly, ignoring his sister.

"Hello, my dear boy." Dr. Cockroach smiled. "Feeling better?"

"Better than I was yesterday." Elijah replied.

"I think you mean the day before that."

"What?"

"You were out starting from the time the ship blew up two days ago until this morning." Phyllis explained.

"The ship blew up?" The coyote boy gawked.

"Hey; don't look at me. Garbage gut here taught me a lot over the past four years." She smirked smugly.

"Wow, the ship blew up…wowie." Jenny said, putting on the brakes after sliding up and down the corridor in her socks. "Thanks a bunch, Bennett," She looked at Dr. Cockroach. "Could you teach me sometime?"

"Phyllis only did it because of her electrical powers." Dr. Cockroach replied, rolling his eyes. "And don't call me Bennett, Jennifer; those days are over."

Jenny shrugged. "Well, well, look who's here." She announced the arrival of the senator.

"You rang?" She greeted, her legs moving as quickly as they could in the not-so-full grey pencil skirt.

"Come here." Dr. Cockroach led his friends to the hospital room. Their eyes widened at the recently transformed Liv, marveling as if the mad scientist replayed the role of Dr. Frankenstein with his phenomenal creation.

"Can she hear us?" Elijah asked, staring at his hospitalized surrogate mother.

"No; not since she fell into her coma." Dr. Cockroach responded sadly.

"Liv?" Elijah softly called. "Can you hear me? It's me, Elijah."

Liv's eyelids gradually tightened, her head slightly turning left and right. Her green eyes squinted open to the world she hadn't seen in days' time. Everything was spinning and blurry, and the sound of her name being called seemed to be distant and echo like a shout in a canyon.

"Give her some time-time-time…" Amanda's voice instructed. "…Faytale-tale-tale…can you hear me-hear me-hear me-me?..."

Liv barely nodded. She shut her eyes again like her next action would require what little energy she had. "Where's…Warren?" She asked through the muffled oxygen mask.

Everyone was started by the two slow but steady words just thrown at them. Must be the longevity of the fairies and elves in her, they all theorized.

"Where's Monger?" She asked again.

"Liv…" Elijah began. The female monster smiled at her adopted pride and joy but was too weak to reach for his face. "Monger's not here."

"Mmm…" She nodded her head again. "He died…" She grimaced as miniscule tears fell down her face. "I remember…"

_At least she remembers what happened. _They all thought.

"We're having a memorial service for him tomorrow afternoon at two." Amanda told everyone. "A private one reserved for you monsters and everyone here." She turned to Phyllis. "I have kept my word; he won't be buried until tomorrow night."

"Will she able to make it to the funeral?" Phyllis asked Dr. Cockroach.

"With the statistics of the timing of the serum, half of it should be in her body by midnight." Dr. Cockroach theorized. "We'll just have to wait and see."


	16. Resurrection

**Ahhh…what a fun holiday season it has been so far…prepping up the house…singing alto in a choir for a concert. I actually have the opportunity to write now as my sister's turned into an anime addict and won't leave the computer**

Phyllis lay snugly under the red fleece blanket and black comforter. Everything that remained of the seven worst years of her life was history. Her former prison was nothing more than smithereens at the bottom of the sea, sending environmentalists all over the world into panic attacks. Nothing remained of the years before that however. Her father's body was destroyed once he was executed. Her mother's body was never seen again once it was taken away shortly after her death. Her childhood home was torn down during her imprisonment to make way for condos. The only thing left she had was her little brother. And that's all that matter, all she needed.

_Ert! Ert! Ert! _An alarm sounded off.

"Now what?" She growled, throwing off the bed covers and crawling to the other side of the full-sized bed to the end table. "No alarms, thank God…so…who's callin' at this ungodly hour?...Liv?" She picked up the speaker. "Liv, is that you?"

"Yes…yes, it's me." Her voice sounded choked up.

"What's the matter?" Phyllis asked. It all felt like a kid waking up mommy or daddy way too early in the morning.

"Just come. I'm still in my hospital room."

"'Kay. 'Be there in a minute." She hung up and yawned. She got up out of bed and kicked aside the slippers at her bedside to put on her pair of black leather boots. She switched a pair of pajamas for her usual red-and-black textured top and pair of black jeans. She thought walking to the other side of the facility in a black baby-T, grey flannel pajama bottoms, and Tasmanian Devil slippers pretty embarrassing.

Sneaking as quickly as she could across the facility, she managed to make it without a trace. Yup, readers, alarm after alarm sounded off when a door barely opened and alarm after alarm was short-circuited with the monster's electrical powers.

Exhausted and somewhat out of breath, Phyllis opened the door to Liv's hospital room. As no personnel ID had been scanned, another alarm went off. "Aw, shut it." Phyllis grumbled, squeezing the life out of the beepings' wires. She walked softly towards her friend's bedside. "Hey."

"Hey." A deeper voice greeted behind her. She jumped and turned around. There standing looking loads better than this morning yet still in his patient's gown was Elijah.

"How the…" She gawked. "Boy did you sure heal up."

"Don't mention it." He ruffled her head with his furry head. She backed away from the discomforting rubbing.

"Quit it. Is Doc here?"

"No; he's asleep. He should be up in about two hours to look at Liv's condition."

And of Liv, Phyllis turned around and leaned over the railings.

"Hey." She greeted. Liv didn't say anything but sadly smiled and reached to stroke her face, her hand shaking. "What's wrong?"

"I…I…" Liv stuttered. "I don't want to be immortal."

"What?!" Elijah and Phyllis whispered in unison. _That's what everybody wants! The fountain of youth, right? _

"I know what you're thinking." Liv said. "But immortality has its cons, like everything else. When any of you die,…I don't think I could take it." Her faint red eyes trailed to the blue serum in a plastic bag that led to a needle in her left arm; it was half-way gone like Dr. Cockroach had predicted. "I need your help."

"With what?" Elijah asked.

Nothing was said in response. With what little strength she had in her arms, Liv lifted herself off her back from the grey-covered mattress and pillow and scooted to the edge off the bed where the railings weren't. Her feet touched the tiled floor, flinching a bit at the cold. Putting her weight onto her legs to stand while clutching the sides of her bed proved in vain as she began to fall to the floor.

Elijah caught her in the nick of time. "You alright?" He asked.

"Mm-hm." She nodded, a little startled by her almost fall and not really believing she was that weak. "My wings are no use; I'm too heavy." The transparent wings fluttered a little before folding back. Elijah lifted her body to carry her back to the bed. "No, not the bed."

"Where then?" Phyllis asked. "The bathroom? It's too soon to take you to the main room. Monger would be turning in his…wherever he is right now."

"Where is he?" Elijah asked.

Phyllis slowly stepped to the edge of the door and peeked out, looking both directions of the corridor. She looked at what seemed to be a regular metal wall at the end of the plain hallway. From what the "mythical" woman and the coyote boy could see on their friend's expression, this wasn't just any ordinary wall.

"What?" She heard two voices ask. How badly she wanted to say "nothing", but that would be a lie—an epic fail of a lie too.

"I remember this wall." She responded. She got a confused look from her little brother. "So does Link. Elijah, you didn't see it cuz you were in the main room with the rest of the gang. Liv, you didn't see it cuz you went into that coma. C'mon, before the quack gets here."

The trio quickly made their way to the wall, Elijah still carrying Liv as well as the stand holding the blue serum and IV needle. One of the small seemingly plain metal panels slid up with the push of Phyllis' hand, revealing a 4-digit access code pad. The only thing that sucked about it was the alarm that would go off with the incorrect finger prints and/or an incorrect first attempt at the password. Boringly, she typed in a random password, betting anything that it would go off. Again, she squeezed the power of the wires behind the pad before the alarm could go off and arranged it to where it would let herself and the others in.

"Welcome to King Tut's tomb, kids." She announced sarcastically.

Around the room stood and hung pictures of a boy, a young man, a middle-ager, and an elderly man, each having bright green eyes. At least half the pictures portrayed them in an army uniform, as a soldier or an officer. It took the two youth a while to figure it out, but Liv could tell right away who was in all these pictures. The same man…her love…her dead fiancé. All of the framed pictures in chronological order, the last one sat on a stand in front of a large rectangular finely polished wooden box with an American flag draped nearly perfectly over it.

"So that's what you guys did with him." Elijah said.

"Don't look at me." Phyllis defended. "Look at Amanda." She looked at the coffin. "Great…does anyone know how to fold a flag without screwing up?"

"I remember. Some soldier working here at the facility a couple years ago." Elijah remembered. "Can you take Liv?"

"Sure." Phyllis scooped up Liv from his arms while Elijah delicately folded the flag. "Break a leg." She gave an almost thumbs up under the fold of the weakened monster's knees.

"Can you open it?" Liv asked. "I can sit on the floor."

Phyllis nodded and set her down gently on the metal tiles below. She pulled and twisted at the locked knobs holding the casket's lid shut, her fingers turning red. Once the locks were undone, she lifted the somewhat heavy lid to reveal the still, stiff General Monger. He was dressed in his general's neatly pressed uniform.

"Well, Liv, there he is." Phyllis heaved breathlessly. _I must be out of my mind. Now what? _

Elijah had finished his steady job of folding the red-white-and-blue flag and stood alongside the two female monsters. He said nothing upon being in the deceased military man's presence. The next three minutes consisted of nothing but silence and staring.

"So what's this?" The black-red-clad monster asked. "A final good-bye?"

"That's not quite what I had in mind." Liv replied. "Can you lift me up?"

Elijah nodded his head, unsure about the winged woman's response. For almost a whole minute she just stared at Monger's corpse. Then all of a sudden, she ripped the IV, gauze tape and all, right out of her arm and stabbed it through the green sleeve and white dress blouse into the grey skin.

"What are you doing?" Phyllis loudly whispered in shock. Sharing his sister's mutual expression, Elijah nearly dropped Liv. No one noticed the hidden vein gulping the serum as if in great parchment. Composing themselves, the three monsters looked at the plastic bag.

The serum was gone.

Liv slid herself out of the coyote boy's arms and leaned on the coffin to look down at the general.

"I know what you're thinking." She said again. "Why did I do this? The blue was the most important part of what made me what I am. It has kept me alive for many years. It has kept me from sickness and has healed my wounds. It's so much; no, too much for me."

"Oh, rats." Phyllis whispered as she put her ear to the door. "Sounds like the garbage gut's on his way in."

"Olivia…" They heard a gravelly weak voice call.

"Warren?" Liv gawked, tears trailing down her cheeks.

"Don't…cry." The voice said.

"How can I not cry? You're alive!" The joy of such a miracle put strength into Liv's weakened legs.

"Liv?" Doc's voice called outside the door.

Elijah and Phyllis winked at each other and turned to the reunited couple. "We'll take care of 'im." Elijah said. Casually they stepped out of the once tomb.

"'He'll live. He lives!'" Phyllis imitated just for the sake of what happened.

"'They said it couldn't be done!'" Elijah expressed, a wide smile accenting their parody.

"'But I've done it!'" She squealed in glee before letting out a burst of maniacal laughter.

Dr. Cockroach couldn't glare or roll his eyes at the youth. When they left the top-top-top (let's face it; top-infinity) secret room, were they just dinking around or expressing some pure joy?

"'It's alive! It's alive!'" Elijah shouted.

"Shhh…" The cockroach man shushed. Those two were so dinking. "Remember Faytale?"

"Oh, she's not in there." Phyllis chimed with a cheesy grin on her face. She turned to headlock and noogie her little brother. "C'mon, Igor; sing with me…

"_Becaaaaauuuuussseee he liiiiiiiiiivvvvvesssss,_

"_I can face tomorrrrrrroooooowwwwww,_

"_Becaaaaauuussseee he liiiiiiivvveeessss,_

"_Alllllll feeeeaaaaar is gooooooooonnnnnne._

"_Because I knooooo-oooowwww,_

"_Who holllllddsss the fuuuuuuutuuurrrreee…" _

Trying to ignore the obnoxiously sung hymn, he stepped into room.

"By Curie's cookbook…"


	17. Wedding of the Century

"**Weddings? I love weddings! Drinks all around!"~Jack Sparrow**

**No POVs in this one, gang!**

Well, as of General Monger's "zombie phenomena", as Jenny first put it, the funeral was cancelled. And so, a month later after the postponed event, a wedding would take place one day. And…guess what? Today was that day.

In his closet-turned office, Monger stood in front of a full-length mirror. Dressed in an exquisitely fine black tuxedo, he straightened the little neat bowtie under his chin. He dreamed of a day like this seventy-five years, which sadly never came to pass until now. It would be a small private wedding with only the monsters and Amanda to be witnesses. There was no bridal party but only Link, Dr. Cockroach, Phyllis and Amanda as attendants.

He hummed to the beat of the classical music playing in the background and looked at the metallic logo-decorated clock. _58…59…_He counted in thought. As the smallest hand on the clock's face hit 60, Amanda, Dr. Cockroach, and Link marched into the room. Dr. Cockroach was dressed in a tuxedo similar to his former warden's, and Link, unable to fit into one, just wore a larger-than-usual black bowtie. Amanda wore a ruby red sleeveless silk dress, the skirt laden with lacy scallops.

"Senator Hathaway; always on time." Monger smiled and shook her hand.

"Good to see you again, General." She nodded her head courteously.

"Aw, man!" Link moaned.

"What?" Dr. Cockroach asked before getting a smug look on his face. "Not enough cologne?"

"No." The fish-ape replied, more than annoyed. "Who in this dump decided to play elevator music?"

"It's Pachelbel's _Canon_, Link." Dr. Cockroach said. "It's commonly played at weddings." His antennae perked up and curled while listening. "Played in the key of D major…on a harpsichord…and by a stringed ensemble."

"And where's Electrill?" The military man asked.

"She's…in…" Amanda hesitated. "She'll be here pretty soon, definitely before anything starts."

The door swung open widely and very suddenly, making the office's occupants jump in surprise. With a paired of heeled brown leather sandals and a sheer gold veil in her left hand, Phyllis breathlessly slammed the door shut.

"Electrill, you're late." Monger said.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Phyllis said repeatedly with frustration as if he said that over and over again. She was dressed in a light blue—the same color as the blue strands in her hair and gold-trimmed Grecian-style gown. With small golden sleeves barely covering shoulders, the dress touched the floor.

"What took you so long?" Link asked.

"Do you really want to know?...Fine. _shoot!_ So the facility's hairstylist tried curling my hair—with a, duh!, curling iron, which made me accidentally electrocute her. So after a few tries to keep me from doing her in, we ended up doing something else. And no, my hair's not that big." A small braid, with tiny blue roses pinned on, circled her head like a headband, and a larger braid was twisted into a bun on the back of her head.

The two other monsters and two humans glanced at each other and had the same mutual feeling about thinking it weird.

Phyllis slid onto the floor to sit down. She slipped on the sandals and laced the attached long straps around her lower legs. "Man, why am I so stupid right now?" She whispered.

"My dear," Dr. Cockroach began, lifting up her chin. "Why do you say such things?"

"'Cause I feel that way." She did her best to the avoid staring at the hand under her chin. "Dressed up like a Spartan."

"Phyllis, there's no way on earth that you are." He said. "And you look beautiful."

She stood up and looked at her cohorts. "Hey, garbage gut?" He turned his head. "It's good to see you with the roach head."

"Say, dames, have you seen Liv?" Link asked. He got glares from all in the room. "What?"

"Not yet." Amanda replied.

"And I know you can't until later on." Phyllis added, pointing at Monger. "Unless you two want a screwer-upper of a marriage."

"Nonsense." The cockroach man smiled. "I'm sure General Monger and Olivia will do swimmingly."

"Whatever you say." Link said as he and Phyllis rolled their eyes.

"And it looks like we better get things started." Amanda noted, looking again at the clock. "We'll see you three soon." She nodded her head and opened the door. "C'mon, Electrill."

The senator and mutant walked down formally, Amanda strolling gracefully and Phyllis grumbling while clumsily stepping down the hallway in those heels.

"Blast these wretches of shoes." Amanda heard Phyllis hiss.

"Don't fret, dear." She said, giving an arm which Phyllis reluctantly took. "It'll all be over soon."

An epiphany suddenly hit Phyllis. Hang the "formalities" and "elegance" of the Grecian style; she just might escape! And so, with an accidental yet intentional trip, she fell to the ground.

"Ow, darn it!" She groaned.

"Alright." Amanda bent down and looked at the right ankle covered by its owner's two hands. "Do you think you can walk okay?"

"Maybe. Do you think I can change my shoes?"

"Sure, but just this once." She answered. She slid an arm under Phyllis' arm and lifted her up. "Easy does it."

"Fine." _Nuts. _Phyllis brooded as she hoped she would never have to wear those effeminate things again. "Are we in a hurry?"

"They'll understand."

They arrived at Phyllis' room, and Amanda grabbed a chair to set the "ailing" Phyllis down next to the closet.

"Now choose something easy to wear." Amanda instructed.

_Okay now…_Phyllis thought. _Not my boots…definitely not my Taz slippers…_"Aha!" She said aloud. And with that she grabbed a pair of brown leather sandals and shoved Amanda into the closet.

"YES!" The blond-haired girl shouted, running down the hallway and laughing hard. Little did she know that Elijah was close by, on his way to the wedding.

"Phyl, what was…" He asked as he looked at the door inside his sister's room. His eyes shot open and he gasped. "You didn't!" He jumped down on all fours and ran after Phyllis.

"Yes, I did." She nodded her head, running as fast as she could and holding up the skirt of her dress.

"You think she'll be fine?"

"Heck, yeah. Just as long as she's the only one in there! Now, c'mon!"

~Later on…~

There had been only a few to occupy the nowadays-vacant former main room. And today there was more but still few. A lovely embroidered silk train ran down the middle of the room, starting from a vacant cell into the center of the room. Along the sides of the train waited Elijah, Jenny, BOB, Susan and Insecto. At the end stood General Monger and a chaplain, standing patiently and awaiting the anticipated beauty of the bride.

Link, Dr. Cockroach, and Phyllis waited inside the vacant cell. "Where's Senator Hathaway?" Dr. Cockroach asked.

"Had a little bit of bad oatmeal this morning and is in her commode with diarrhea right now." Phyllis fibbed casually. "But she says she'll be fine, and if she can't make it, to go ahead."

"Okay…" Link said, cocking an eyebrow. "So what time are we going down the aisle?"

"About now." Dr. Cockroach answered, looking at the wristwatch wrapped around his tiny wrist.

"So let's get going." Link said abruptly and grabbed Dr. Cockroach by the arm.

"You remembered the lipstick, right?" Dr. Cockroach asked Phyllis. She clicked her tongue and gave a thumbs-up as well as a wink. The door slid open to allow the fish-ape and cockroach man crawl out without Phyllis being seen. She gave out a sigh of relief. She knew she would be in big doodoo later on that day, oh, but it was worth it.

She jumped upon hearing a knock on the door inside. "Are they ready?" A voice asked.

"Yep." With that, Phyllis opened the door. She stepped back, not only to let the bride in but also in awe of the loveliness in front of her.

Liv smiled prettily. The white gown she wore matched her personality well; it was simple but gorgeous. A lacy collar wrapped around under her neck and over her upper chest, leaving open the center of the front. Silk sleeves covered her shoulders and reached to the wrists with a small diamond point on her hands. The top had a bodice-style to it, the material behind the criss-crossed ribbon having an old-fashioned elegant pattern. The skirt had the same pattern as the top and touched to bottom of the floor. Dainty white flats hid quaintly under the dress. A veil attached to a diamond-spangled comb stuck out from behind the lightly waved hair. The sheer sans-melanin wings behind her back fit the gown perfectly. Red roses and white Queen-Anne's-Lace flowers were tied together with a satin white bow and lay snugly in her arms.

"Do you like it?" She asked.

"Do I like it?" Phyllis gawked. "This is the most beautiful I've ever seen you in…wow…Monger's gonna go into conniptions when he sees this."

Liv chuckled, blushing a little bit. "Dr. Cockroach said you had lipstick with you."

"Yesh, and here it is." Phyllis pulled out a shiny tube hidden in her bun and handed it to the bride. "You'd better do it." Liv applied the ruby-red makeup and returned the tube to her attendant.

As Pachelbel's _Canon _began to come to its close, Phyllis asked, "Are you upset?"

"About what? The wedding?" Liv cocked her head.

"No. About not being Faytale all the way again."

"It's alright, Phyllie." She stroked the twenty-five-year-old's cheek. "Monger's alive, I'm alive, and the team's back together again. Don't fret. In some way or another, I'll get strength back in these wings."

The first seven first seven notes of the traditional wedding march could be heard out in the main room. "Showtime." Phyllis whispered, opening the big door and holding up the end of the train of the gown.

"All rise!" BOB announced as everyone stood up.

"Shaddup." Link hissed quietly and smacked the blob's side.

A solemn smile on her face, Liv took her first steps down the aisle as well as her last steps as Miss Roberts. Her now blue eyes, hidden under thick black lashes, soared to the end of the aisle where the chaplain and her dearest love waited. It was only a short minute as she ended the life-changing trek, but it all felt like an hour. She clasped her hands anxiously as Phyllis traded the lacy train for the red-and-white bouquet.

"Ladies and gentlemen, family and friends," The chaplain began. "We are gathered here today to witness and celebrate the joining of General Warren Monger and Faytale in marriage. With love and commitment, they have decided to live their lives together as husband and wife. If anyone thinks otherwise, speak now or forever hold your peace. Please be seated."

He turned to Monger. "Do you, Warren, take Faytale to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold her, to honor her, to treasure her, to be at her side in sorrow and in joy, in the good times, and in the bad, and to love and cherish her always as long as you both shall live?"

"I do." The General said, subtly but strongly.

"Do you, Faytale, take Warren to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold him, to honor him, to treasure him, to be at his side in sorrow and in joy, in the good times, and in the bad, and to love and cherish him always as long as you both shall live?"

"I do." Liv replied, her blue-purple eyes lighting up.

"The rings, if you please." Dr. Cockroach arose from his metal chair and carried a little plush cushion holding two rings.

Monger delicately picked up the one with the emerald stone and took his bride's left hand. "With this ring, as a token of our love and commitment, I wed you." He said as a proud smile grew on his face. Liv gave back a mutual smile and picked a gold band with his and her names engraved on the exterior.

"With this ring, as a token of our love and commitment, I wed you." She said under her breath.

"By the power vested in me by the Law of the United States of America, I now pronounce you man and wife." The minister announced. He gave an awkward stare as no one applauded the news of this momentous day. "Um…(okay)…you may—"

A square slab of metal on the floor below him disappeared, making him fall through and letting out a scream.

"What the H-E—" Monger began.

However, their focus on the sudden absence of the minister changed. All the smaller doors—behind, around, in front of the ceremony—opened. The room was soon flooded by a horde of people.

"Is that…" Liv began, with wide dark green eyes. "…the staff?"

_All from Area Bleepenheimer._ Everyone thought in unison. All over, doctors, scientists, engineers, psychologists, cleaners, metalworkers, carpenters, chefs, architects, interior designers, interns, soldiers, seamstresses, laundromats, pilots, just people cheered with applause, whistles, hoots, chants, and party noisemakers.

"Thank you, yes, thank you." Link stepped in front of the couple, holding a microphone in his large hand. "Ladies and gentlemen, may I, the Missing Link, now present to you General and Mrs. W. R. Mongerrrrrrrrr!" The cheers grew louder and louder.

"Okay, little lady." Link turned to the newlyweds. "Soldier boy." Monger gave an honorary glare. "_Now _you may kiss the bride."

And with that, Monger pulled back a lock of Liv's hair and pulled her in for a kiss. Surreally, Liv's body began to glow of orange, yellow, and blue.

"Boy, can Monger kiss." Jenny commented.

"Nope. That's not him doin' that." Susan said.

The three colors flowed threw her wings, that began to flutter uncontrollably. The cheering stopped as the audience watched Liv's body shrink to two-thirds of her human height. Thankfully her wings kept her levitated and from landing on the ground.

In anticipation and overjoyed that his small invention worked, Dr. Cockroach threw his head back in maniacal laughter. He was stopped in an instant when an elbow pounded its way into his solar plexus. He bent over in pain and glared at Phyllis.

"Nobody does that a wedding, garbage gut." She said, admiring the fact that her maneuver worked splendidly. "Not unless you're drunk."

"Well, there's no reception." Elijah noted. "Who knows?"

Monger and Liv pulled back from the kiss, happier than ever—and of course quite shocked that he had his arms around the bend of her knees instead of around her waist.

"Well," She giggled. "I guess I'm back." He didn't say anything but kissed her again.

"Ya wanna get ready?" He whispered and cocked his head to the left. She nodded her head excitedly, making her wavy locks bounce like mattress springs. "Then let's get goin'."

"Here they are!" Link announced and pushed a button that led to that mysterious trapdoor where a jetpack sprung out ready and fresh for the general. Monger strapped himself to the contraption and ascended alongside his wife. As they glided away, it was now noticed that a "Just Married" sign and a rattling set of cans had been tied to the back. "And there they go! Up, up and away to a month in Slavic Europe." Another cheer arose, everyone knowing it was time to get back to everyday life. "Now you go."

"Awww…" BOB moaned as the last of the crowd evacuated the room. "The party was just getting started."

"It's okay." Link patted him on the back. "We'll have a party; don't worry."

"Yet." Amanda's voice echoed coldly. The monsters turned to see a version of Amanda that had crawled out from a landmine. Her perfect bun now lay around her shoulders and her red dress was torn and soiled with grease.

"Diarrhea?" Dr. Cockroach repeated and brooded at Phyllis. "Really, Phyllis?" He clicked his tongue and shook his head.

Amanda smirked and pulled out a beat-up walkie-talkie. She flipped on the switch.

"Mandy, don't do this." Link said worryingly.

_"Revoke Electrill's music, toy box, and video game privileges immediately." _The senator's voice echoed on speakers throughout the facility.

"Crum." Phyllis grumbled. 


End file.
